


We'll Always Have Siena

by D_Veleniet



Category: Mozart in the Jungle (TV)
Genre: F/M, Kinda a fixit, Post Season 4, Rating is for early chapters, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-03-31 03:49:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13966719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_Veleniet/pseuds/D_Veleniet
Summary: A bar in Siena.  A restaurant in New York.  Is it Fate that keeps bringing Hailey and Rodrigo together after they've spent years apart?  Or are they just random coincidences?  And as they continue to grow and change, can they find a way to stay in each others' lives - or are they fated to forever orbit each others' orbits?  Post season 4 fix-it.





	1. Limoncello and Gelato

**Author's Note:**

> Hey you lovely people who said you wanted to read this! I don't know where it came from, but this idea grabbed me and literally would not let go. It's going to take a few chapters to take its form, so bear with me until then. In the meantime, hope you enjoy! :)

 

Hailey shifted her weight to the side again, leaning on the wall opposite the door marked _Bagno_.  She had _just_ missed her opportunity to duck into the bathroom when the persistent guy at the bar had suggested she have a few more sips of that limoncello he'd bought for her.  After her two glasses of Chianti, it seemed to be going straight to her head.  Because even he was starting to look like a promising prospect to end her two and a half months of self-imposed chastity.

After a blood test revealed that birth control pills were increasing her risks of blood clots, she had to go off of them.  It hadn't been that big a deal since she'd been so busy that sex hadn't been a huge priority.  But after over a year of this excuse, Lizzie finally cornered her, insisting it was because she was afraid no one would measure up after Rodrigo.  Hailey had finally admitted that it wasn’t because she was _afraid_ no one would.  It was that no one actually _had_.

_“Like let’s say sex is chocolate ice cream, and that’s all you’ve had all your life.  And yeah, you love chocolate ice cream, but then one day you discover that there’s dark chocolate GELATO with ribbons of sea salt caramel and pecans.  So it’s not like you CAN’T enjoy ice cream again, but it’s that every time you have it, there's a part of you that goes, ‘That was good...but it's not gelato.’”_

_“So – what?  Your solution is just to never have sex again?  ‘Cause Rodrigo ruined you for all men for the rest of time?”  Lizzie threw herself onto the couch in a melodramatic imitation of a swoon, hand thrown across her forehead._

_“No.  I’m just – gonna focus on my art for a while.”_

_“UGH.  Do NOT become one of those weird, sex-starved artists ‘cause they always go batshit crazy.  Wasn’t that how you said Rodrigo’s ex was?  Like actually wore a fucking chastity belt?”_

_“I’m not gonna wear a chastity belt, don’t worry.  And I’ll be too busy anyway ‘cause I’ll be trying to prove myself to the ‘rotten scoundrel’ sexist coach Pascatti.”_

_“And what if you want to learn how to…use his baton?”_

_“Eww, gross, he’s like 60-something.  And Thomas said he’s difficult to work with, but if I can get past his ‘problems with the fairer sex,’ it’ll be worth it.”_

Thomas had insisted that she needed to study under a man named Pascatti, an obscure conducting coach that only those on the inside _inside_ circles knew about, and even fewer had access to.  Thomas had access to him, of course, and was able to call in a favor to have his young protégé come work under his tutelage.  And so Hailey had set off on a trek to some obscure Italian town called Gubbio to work with this Pascatti and start to really fine-tune her craft.

She knew she needed to expect a different kind of relationship than the one she had with Thomas, especially given his warnings.  So she’d been fully prepared for a hard-ass, sexist asshole who looked down his nose at her and wouldn’t give her the time of day until she’d proven herself to him.  She had _not_ prepared for a misogynist, womanizing, _creepy_ asshole who had greeted her with a full-fledged leer _,_ and who had made several horrifying remarks about how he liked to watch her conduct, all while openly ogling her chest.

Honestly, it was amazing she’d lasted two weeks.

But then she had decided that she was going to make her trip and her visa worth it, dammit, and so she had backpacked and Airbnb-ed her way through the country, working her way up the coast, then through the hill towns.  She’d been in Siena for a week now, and since she was nearing the end of her stay, she allowed herself the luxury of an actual _hotel_ and had finally unearthed her sexy, little black dress to see if maybe she could put it to use.  She'd earned it, after all. 

Her prospects had been disappointingly thin when she walked in, however, with mostly couples or families or _really_ scheezy-looking Italian guys seated at the tables.  So she’d parked herself at the bar, downing two glasses of Chianti before the current guy had appeared, stumbling through his few eye-rolling clichéd English pickup lines, including “You are very beautiful” and “I love your lips,” as if these would make her drop everything and jump into bed with him.  But _damn_ , that limoncello he’d bought her was strong, as her eyes kept wandering over to where he was seated, his southern Italian features starting to take on an attractive bent, reminiscent of someone Greek or Spanish –

_Or Mexican._

She crossed her arms, glancing at her watch as a flush crawled up her neck, spreading out over her face.  An answering heat had started between her legs, and she crossed those, too, now contemplating needing the bathroom for an entirely different reason. 

Hoping to speed things up, she knocked.  “ _Scusa?_ ”

“ _Momento_!” came the reply.  In a decidedly masculine voice.

Hailey had a moment of panic as she glanced up at the silhouette and the lettering above it, wondering if maybe she’d gotten the wrong one in her limoncello-fueled haze.  But that was definitely a lady’s features with _Donne_ in elegant cursive beneath it. 

“ _Questo bagno e…per donne_ ,” she reminded whoever the guy was through her broken, badly accented Italian.

“ _Solo un momento, per favore_.” 

Hailey let out a sigh, though it quickly changed as some man with sandy-colored, curly hair, chiseled features and broad shoulders moved past her to the men’s room down the hall.  He barely touched her, but to touch-starved Hailey it felt like a live wire, and she couldn’t help breathing him in as he passed, letting the smell of cologne and aftershave infiltrate her senses, sending yet more heat to her legs, which she now rubbed together.

She bit her lip, her hand absentmindedly finding the black, silky material that clung to her hips, starting a stroking pattern as she surveyed her prospects.  The loud group of Italians in the corner had two women and four men, but she couldn’t figure out who was with whom.  There was a tall, fair-haired guy with what looked like a couple of his friends, and Hailey zeroed in on them – before realizing that they were probably American college students, which was a big _no_.  Not only would she have felt like a cradle robber (honestly, did she look so _young_ back then?), but who knew what kind of diseases they carried?  Even with a condom.  She shuddered at the thought.    

She was trying to decide if the redhead hunched over a book in the corner was English or Irish when the door opened - and out stepped Rodrigo.

They both drew in shocked breaths at the same time.

“Rodrigo?”

“Hai Lai.”  And she’d forgotten the way he could say her name, on a breath, a sigh even, almost in reverence.

And if she had been horny before, _now…_

She stared at him, as he stood before her in full, glorious technicolor, and no, those two years of only memories had not done him any justice.  He wore his hair longer in front, long enough that it had a bit of a wave to it, sweeping down on his brow.  The man seemed impervious to the aging process, his features free of wrinkles, with only flecks of gray throughout his ever-present light beard to mark the passage of time.  He was dressed in dark pants and a dark suit jacket over a crisp, white dress shirt, with a long, burgundy-colored silk scarf draped over his lapels. 

 _Dark chocolate sea salt caramel gelato, indeed:  he looked good enough to fucking eat_.

He barked out a surprised-sounding laugh.  "To _eat_?  Em – well, thank you, thank you."

Fuck.  She'd literally said that out loud.

Hailey had not been the only one drinking in the appearance of an ex, though, as she'd felt his gaze rake over her, an unmistakable flash of desire appearing in his eyes before he blinked, shaking himself out of it.  “And you, Hai Lai, you look…you look really good.  Your, your hair…it’s a little longer, yes?”

Running a hand through her shoulder-length waves, she let it trail down her neck, over her collarbone.  “Yeaaah, it is.”  Boldly reaching a hand out, she caught the fringe sweeping onto his brow, letting it sift through her fingers.  “Yours is, too.”   

“Ye – yes, yes, it is,” he sputtered, and she giggled at that.  He smiled at her before his features took on an inquisitive cast.  “Are you okay, Hai Lai?  You seem a bit – I don’t know, you seem a bit different.”

“Well, you haven’t seen me in two years.” Her hand fell to his shoulder, and she grasped his scarf between her fingers, letting them trail down it sensuously, looking up at him from beneath hooded eyes.  “People change.”

He let out another nervous laugh.  “Yes, okay, you are right, I haven’t, but this is, this doesn’t seem like you even a little bit.  You are acting a little -”

“Free?” She posed, grasping the other end of his scarf, tugging lightly on it. 

“Free?  Em – maybe.  Though I would say a little more like – well, how long have you been here?  Have you had a lot to drink this evening?”

“I’ve had two glasses of Chianti.”  Her pointer fingers traced slow circles on the spirals adorning his scarf.  “And like half a glass of limoncello.”  She tilted her head, smirking at him.  “Sooo not drunk.”

He let out that laugh again.  “Okay, okay, but you are still a little, I don’t know – a little off?" And he brought up his hands towards hers, presumably to push her away since she had pretty much completely invaded his personal space.  But she snagged her fingers through his, catching them and bringing them around her neck.  “Hai Lai…” he protested, glancing behind her and freeing himself from her forced embrace.  "Okay, I think it would be good if we got you home.  Are you here with someone?"

“Nooo,” she drawled, giggling.  “I’m alone tonight.”

His expression softened at that.  “You are alone? Well, then are you staying somewhere?”

“Yeah, but it’s reeeeally far away.”  She leaned in and dropped her voice to a murmur.  “And the bathroom’s right there…”

"The bathroom??  Oh yes, yes – you should use it before you go.  You were waiting before, yes?"

Her lips pursed into a pout as he evaded her while somehow managing to gently guide her towards the bathroom which, fortunately, still stood empty.

"Okay, _esso._   I have to go do something, and then I will be back and I will get you home.  Okay?  We can take a taxi or something, I'll take care of it.”

She continued to pout at him.  “You’ll meet me here?”

“Yes.”  He cupped her chin.  “Don’t go anywhere.  Without me.”

Her pout was instantly replaced with a smile.  “I won’t.”

She did a quick touch-up, tousling her waves, reapplying a coat of lipstick, and tugging at her dress to give herself more cleavage.  It was a black, silky slip of a thing, clingy and low-cut, especially without a bra.  She pursed her lips experimentally, completing her once-over.  _Perfect._

Hailey emerged from the bathroom, scanning the bar and restaurant area for Rodrigo.   The man at the bar who'd bought her the limoncello caught her eye, raising his own glass of limoncello with the most over-the-top _come hither_ look she'd ever seen.  She ignored him, the anticipation of the mind-blowing, Earth-shattering sex she was going to have making her antsy.  But when the object of her desire appeared, she gave him her most winning smile.

"Hi.  You came back to get me."

"I did!  Yes – are you ready?  Do you have a coat?"

She shrugged.  “I don’t need one.  It’s still kinda warm outside.”  Her glance slid sideways.  “Or _you_ could keep me warm if you want,” she suggested coyly, giggling.

“I could.  I will – I will keep you warm - here.”  And shrugging out of his jacket, he draped it around her shoulders. 

“Thanks.” 

Placing a hand at the small of her back, he guided her out onto the street.  "So – you're staying someplace far away you said?  Where are you staying?"

"It's only two blocks."

"Two blocks??  How is that so far away??  I thought you said it was far."  He glanced at her flats.  "Are your feet hurting you?"

She giggled.  "No, no.  I just meant – where I'm staying is really far away compared to the _bathroom_."

"The bathroom??"  His face grew concerned.  "Do you need to use the bathroom again before we go?"

"Nooo," she crowed, laughing, catching his scarf again and pulling herself into him.  "I just meant the bathroom is closer for doing _other_ things."

"Okay, okay, we will not be doing any other – things, Hai Lai; we are going to get you home."  He unwrapped her fingers from around his scarf, placing her hand in the crook of his arm.  "But you can lean on me if you want, okay?"

She accepted the invitation to do so, squeezing his bicep and stroking her fingers along the side.

"And you let me know if you need to stop - or you feel dizzy or anything like that."

"I'm fiiiine."  She nuzzled his shoulder, breathing him in.  "God, you smell sooo good.  I'd forgotten how good you smell."

He chuckled.  "Thank you, thank you.  You also smell - good.  You smell really good."  His jaw snapped shut, like he wasn't supposed to be saying things like that.

"It's weird the things you forget, isn't it?  Like how someone smells.  It sucks that you eventually like forget that."

He let out what sounded like an aborted sigh.  "Yes, Hai Lai.  It does."

"And how someone looks.  Like you lose that, too.  'Cause I _really_ didn't remember that you were _this_ fucking hot."

He sputtered out another laugh.  "Em – yes, I – thank you.  That is – very nice of you to say."

"So were you always this fucking hot or did I just forget?"

Another laugh tinged with nervousness and discomfort.  "I don't – I don't know, I don't – em, I guess I have not changed my appearance much.  But I don't know."

"You also haven't aged a day in two years.  Which isn't fair.  The rest of the world gets older, and you don't."  She smiled up at him.  "Are you sure you're not secretly an _elf_?"

He smirked at that.  "I told that if I was an elf, I would tell you.  I am human, Hai Lai.  I am very much a person."

"Yeah," she agreed, snuggling into him as they walked.  "You're still the best person."

"Really?"  He looked down at her, various emotions playing across his features.  "You still think I am the best person?"

She slowed them to a standstill, reaching out and brushing her knuckles along his cheek.  "I guess there's more gray in your beard than before, and that's the only sign that you’ve aged."  She gazed at him.  "How about me?  Do I look older?"

His eyes chased across her features, lingering on her lips a moment before returning to her eyes.  "You are still very beautiful, Hai Lai.  Very beautiful."

She leaned in.  "Am I still as hot as you remembered?" she murmured.

Even in the low light, she could see the desire radiating off of him.  "You are...maybe more."

She closed the distance between them – but at the last second he pulled back, ducking his head.  "No.  No, no, no.  We need to get you home, and then I -"

"I am home."  She glanced up at the sign of _Il Palazetto,_  her hotel for the last week.  "This is me." 

"Oh!  Okay, okay, good - we have brought you home!  Yes!  We did it!"  He sounded so relieved, but Hailey ignored it.

"I think..." She began, grasping the edge of his scarf again.  "That you should come upstairs with me."

"Hai Lai, no.  No, no, no."  He undid her fingers from around his scarf but didn't let go of her hand.  "You are home now, and now you can go to sleep and maybe tomorrow we can talk, okay?  After you have slept some?"

"But I'm not tired."  And she pulled his hand in the direction of the entrance.  "And aren't you all worried about my safety?"

He looked almost indignant at that.  "Yes!  Of course I am!  I want you to be safe - that is why I have brought you home."

"Wellll," she played with his fingers, the way that she used to when they were together.  "How else will you know that I'm completely safe unless you personally tuck me into bed?"  She giggled.

Rodrigo sighed, an internal battle seeming to rage within him.  He surveyed the _Palazetto_ like it might provide the answers he sought, gaze alighting on the proverbial set of stairs before him.  He patted his pocket a few times before seeming to make a decision.  “Okay.  Yes.  Just to make sure you are in your room, and you are safe.”

Two flights of stairs and one fumbled key retrieval later, he very pointedly looked everywhere but at her once they were in her room.  “Okay, so you are – you are here, in your room.  You are safe now.  Yes?”

Hailey locked the door, leaning back against it.  “Yep.  I’m all safe, locked away from the outside world.  No one can get in.”

Had he actually swallowed loudly or was she just imagining things?

“Okay!  That’s good.  Do you want to get ready to get into the bed now – for sleeping?”

"I told you I'm not tired."  And removing his jacket, she laid it over the edge of the nearby dresser.  "But you can still help me."

He brightened at this.  "I can?  How can I help you, Hai Lai?"

"I need you to tell me whether I'm as hot as you remembered."

Another nervous laugh.  "I did – I said, I said you were, or you know...maybe a little more."

"You can't tell me unless you really look."

It took him a few moments to finally drag his gaze to hers.  "I am looking. See?"

"No, I mean -" and with one swift motion, Hailey had taken off her dress, prompting an exclamation from Rodrigo.  " _Really_ looking."

" _Hai Lai_!"  He turned his head to the side, letting out a fast string of Spanish that was probably laden with curses.

"What?"  She looked down at herself, giving a little shrug before slowly raising her eyes to him.  "It's not like it's anything you haven't seen before."

He continued to mutter in Spanish, taking deep breaths between every phrase or so, his gaze firmly averted to the side.

She took a step towards him, then another.  "It's okay."  And her voice came out softer than she'd anticipated.  "All you have to do is look."

He sounded like he was trying to get his breathing under control, taking huge gulps of air.  "Okay. Okay, okay," he murmured, as if to himself.  "I can look.  It's just looking.  I can do that, yes.  Yes, I can look."  His hands illustrated a _so what_? gesture.  "Juuuust looking.  Juuuuust..."  He brought his head around, his gaze instantly turning hungry, devouring every inch of her, prompting his mouth to fall open and him to stumble back onto the bed, sitting down heavily as if the very sight of her brought him to his knees.  "Looking," he finally rasped.

"Sooo..."  She took a few more steps forward until she was standing right in front of him.  "Am I as hot as you remembered?"

He swallowed.  "More.  So much...more.  Hotter.  Definitely...hotter."

Bracing her hands on his shoulders, she slowly swung one leg up onto the bed and then the other, sinking down into his lap, moaning when she felt how hard he was beneath her. 

Though it was _nothing_ compared to the noise he made.  " _Ai dios_ ," he practically squeaked, trembling beneath her, his hands clenching the bedspread. 

"Do I feel hotter to you?" she murmured.

His eyes fluttered shut, his mouth hanging open.  "You feel...so hot.  So very...very hot.  The most hot..."

Tantalizingly, she brushed her breasts against his shirt, rocking into him, which prompted another high-pitched, half-strangled moan from him.  Then, she pulled back to look at him, mesmerized by the sight of him _this_ turned-on, this debauched, _this_ putty-like in her hands…

Two and a half months she’d been here.  And three months since that wretched excuse for a one-night-stand-whatshisname-Stan.  Steve?  Stefan?  She’d been so drunk she couldn’t remember, just knew she’d had to scratch that itch.  She hadn’t even told Lizzie.

And now, after months and months and months of intermittently fasting and giving in and going for discount ice cream, she would get to indulge in  _dark chocolate sea salt caramel gelato_.  _With pecans._   There actually was a God.

And yet...underneath her lust, she could feel a different ache than the delicious one between her legs.  A different kind of need calling out.  And it made her lean forward again but only to press her forehead into his.  "I've missed you," she whispered, the admission tumbling from her mouth before she could stop it. 

Some half-whimper sounded from the back of his throat, and he pulled back to look at her, wonder in his features.  "You have?  Really?"  And a shaking hand reached up to touch her hair, tentatively stroking it.  "You've missed me, Hai Lai?"

"Yeah."  And her fingers curled into the back of his neck.  "Have you missed me?"

A pained expression shot across his face, nearly crumpling it until his eyes closed, something like a sob sounding from his throat as his lips crashed into hers in a searing kiss.


	2. Scaffolding and a Black Box

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm going to keep writing for this tiny fandom, even if it seems pretty quiet now. Because there's still no word about a season 5. Sooo for anyone who might stop by to read or who is interested in this - hope you enjoy! :)

_Knock_ _knock_ _knock_ _._  

 _“_ _Signorina_?” a woman called. 

“Hrrrmmmm,” came Hailey’s muffled reply. 

“ _Po_ _sso_ _entrare_ _per_   _pulire_ _…”_  

Hailey missed the last bit, folding the edge of the pillow over her head.   

 _Knock_ _knock_ _._  

The sound of a key turning was enough to startle Hailey’s eyes open, making her bolt upright in bed. 

“ _Posso – oh!”_ The woman’s hand flew up to her eyes.  “ _Scusate_ _,_ _signorina_ _, mi_ _dispiace_!” 

“What?  Oh  _fuck_!”  Hailey dove under the bedclothes, bunching them around her naked chest.  “ _Non_ _sono_ _…_ um…” 

“So sorry, miss.  So sorry,” the woman blathered in English.  “I did not – I come back, yes?   _A_ _che_ _ora_?  What time?” 

“Umm…” Hailey fumbled for her phone, frowning when she couldn’t find it.  “Uh – an hour?” 

“ _Un_ _'_ _ora_ _–_ _certo_ _._ Certainly, miss.  I come back in one hour.” 

“ _Grazie_ ,” Hailey called halfheartedly as the door closed, before flopping down on the bed again, wincing as her muscles protested.  Seriously,  _everything_ hurt.  Like she must have used every muscle to… 

“ _Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck_ ,” she groaned into the pillow, thumping it a few times.  She did not want to think.  She did  _not_ want to think about last night, about – 

 _Rodrigo._  

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” she called out this time, pressing her palms into the heels of her eyes.  Like if she couldn’t see, that would mean that last night hadn’t happened.  That she hadn’t actually –  

 _Nope.  Not going to think about it._  

She needed a distraction, and so she threw a leg out of bed, hissing her discomfort when as her foot hit the floor.  A bit more careful with the second leg, she stood shakily, rubbing at her eyes as she hunted for her phone.  Cursing as she stumbled over one of her flats, she made her way to the dresser, finding her purse.  Fumbling with the catch, she dug out her phone, shuffling back to bed, flopping down on it. 

And bolted upright again. 

 _17 texts??_  

 _8 missed calls??_ _?_  

 _5 voicemails??_ _??_  

All from her mom. 

Completely awake now, she started listening to the voicemails, her heart pounding. 

Dad.  Accident.  Something about scaffolding at work that had fallen.  Hospital.  Coma.   

The texts were the same, but more detailed.   

Brain injury.  Bleeding stopped.  Doctors not sure.  Name of hospital.  Room number.  In ICU. 

And after each one –  

 _Call me when you get this._  

 _Please let me know when you’re awake._  

 _We don’t know if he’s going to wake up._  

And, finally: 

 _Please come home._  

Less than an hour later, she was packed, showered, and checking out, waiting for a call back to see if they’d found her a seat on an Alitalia flight out of Florence that evening.  Numbly she stared at the concierge as he settled her bill, her gaze drifting to the stack of local papers on the corner of the desk.  Frowning at the image splashed across the front, she gripped the edge of the paper, angling it towards her for a better read. 

The image was of  _ll_ _Bottiglia_   _Vuota_ , the bar she’d been in last night.  Except it looked like a fucking tornado had torn through it. 

The front windows had been smashed, tables and chairs alike were overturned, and broken glassware and china littered the floor.   

 _What the...?_  

She scanned the accompanying article, trying to make out what she could from her limited knowledge of the language combined with her two years of high school Spanish.  But her brain wasn’t up to it, and she was about to give up when she saw a familiar name that catapulted her heart into her throat: 

 _“…R_ _odrigo de Souza,_ _uno_ _degli_ _uomini_ _…”_  

“ _Scusa_ _,_ ” Hailey asked, interrupting the concierge’s typing.  “Excuse me.”  She held up the paper.  "Can you tell me what this article says?  Not the whole thing, just a summary.” 

“Of course,  _signorina_.”  And the man skimmed over the paper, lips pursed.  “Ah.  It says only there was a fight, and this – this, the  _Bottiglia_   _Vuota_ , this restaurant, yes?  It had much damage from the fight.  Also…that the two men who were fighting, they were arrested.” 

“The two men that were fighting – was one of them Rodrigo de Souza?” 

“Hmm, let’s see…yes.  Yes, one of them was Rodrigo de Souza, a…oh.  Apparently he was a famous conductor.  A  _maestro_.  And the other…a man from Napoli.  Giovanni Arandici.” 

“Does it say what they were fighting over?” 

“Hmm…no.  It says that Signore de Souza claims Signore Arandici attacked first, but…Signore Arandici says this also.  That they were having a nice conversation when Signore de Souza started punching him.” 

“And they were arrested?  Were they sent to jail?” 

“Mmm…”  The concierge continued to read.  “Yes.  They were taken to the jail.” 

“ _Shit_ ,” Hailey breathed.  “So they’re in jail now?” 

“Yes, unless they were released.”  The man looked kindly on her.  “But I wouldn’t worry,  _signorina_ , we have good police force here.  If they are dangerous, they will not be let out of jail.” 

“No, no – I’m not worried about that.  Thank you.   _Grazie._ " 

Hailey mulled over the article while she waited for her train to Florence, paper clutched in hand like her fingers could seep into the words and make sense of them. 

A fight?  Not that she could say it didn't sound like Rodrigo because she'd seen him nearly come to blows over soccer, outdated interpretations of  _Carmina_ _Burana_ _,_ and – well, he had tried to drown a robot once. 

But an outright barroom  _brawl_ _?_ That didn't sound like him at all.  Rodrigo had a short fuse sometimes, sure, but he wasn't an aggressive or violent man.  And the amount of destruction in that restaurant... 

Maybe it was one of those dumb situations where he had gotten into a fight (most likely over soccer; perhaps the man from Naples had said something derogatory about the Mexican soccer team) and then other guys had joined in because of their dumb testosterone or needing to be the alpha or whatever.  But because Rodrigo had been one of the ones who started it, he was pegged as the one who needed to be arrested. 

Made sense.  After all, he'd been arrested solely because he'd been in charge of the rehearsal that had trespassed on public property.  And owned up to using wire cutters to "deface" public property or something.  He was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

As she boarded the train and found a seat, she tried to ignore the annoying, niggling voice that reminded her that she couldn't say she knew him that well anymore, that she couldn't be the one to judge, especially after -   

" _I fucking fucked up, and I do not know how to fix it._ " 

Sighing, she tried to push her thoughts away from the events of the previous night.  The Tuscan landscape was gorgeous:  poplar trees that poked out of rolling green hills and valleys; the various  _citta_  that dotted the landscape.  She put on Ralph Vaughan Williams' travel songs, a fitting soundtrack.  But if she didn't think about last night, her mind drifted to - 

 _Is Dad going to wake up?_  

 _What was the last thing_ _I said to him?_  

 _Was it nice?  Were we fighting?_  

Scrolling through her texts, she found their last exchange.  She'd told him not to come to her concert.  As an official member of the New York Symphony now, she'd already played a number of concerts already, but the new  _maestro_  had chosen Mahler's 8th.  With her dad there, she was afraid she'd fuck up.  Well...it was also in retaliation for his complete lack of support for how well her ensemble was doing, if she was being honest with herself.  There were some texts about how she was losing focus, how she needed to follow through now that she had something she'd always wanted.  And her polite  _fuck you-_ text that told him she'd prefer if he didn't come to the Mahler, even though it was the season closer.  

They hadn't texted since. 

She swiped at the tears, hating how childish and vindictive and fucking  _petty_  that seemed now.  How  _she_ seemed now.  And now maybe she'd never get to make up for it, to tell him that of  _course_ he could come to her concert; he could come to any and all of her concerts, that she was lucky to have him, lucky that he was so supportive of her, so invested... 

Hailey stifled a sob, rifling through her bag for a tissue, which she pressed to her mouth.  She couldn't fall apart like this.  Not now.  She didn't know what was going to happen.  She needed a distraction, something else to focus on - 

" _Ai,_ _Hai Lai, this is not about_ _you_!" 

She scoured her music for something else when the Vaughan Williams wasn't cutting it.  The Shostakovich?  More Sibelius?  Prokofiev?  There was that Schubert piece she'd been learning with Thomas before she left.  She even tried an Andrew Walsh performance, zeroing in on how unimaginative his tempi were, his execution and interpretation of the pieces all utterly uninspired. 

" _We are here, now._ _We are together.  That's all that matters._ " 

Thumping her head against the seat with a groan, she finally gave in, letting the memories of the previous night come rushing back.  

*** 

Hard, fast, almost rough - it was  _exactly_  what she'd been craving.  Rodrigo probably set a world record for the amount of time it took from the moment his lips met hers until he was inside her, shedding all his clothing and what remained of hers in what seemed like seconds.  He didn't last long, but she didn't care:  she just flipped them over, trailing her mouth down his body, making exclamations about how fucking  _perfect_ he was.  He let her explore and probe and taste for a few minutes before he turned the tables, pinning her beneath him, devouring her like a starving man at a feast.  He chuckled at her mewling noises as his explorations took him lower, swatting at her hand when she tried to push his head, his mouth, his tongue where she  _needed_ him to go.  Still sticky from their first coupling, she let out a groan as he licked and laved at her, how he didn't discriminate between what had come from her or from him.   

He crawled up her body after he'd sent her into a stratospheric climax, ready for round three.  She wrestled control from him again, setting to work on him with her mouth.  He crowed his delight, an unintelligible mix of Spanish, English and a smattering of French, before tugging at her so she was straddling him and he could finish off inside her again.   

After some slower, lazier kissing, Hailey pronounced herself gross and in need of a shower.  Rodrigo let her shower alone for maybe five minutes before he showed up, asking if he could join her.  He proposed washing her, despite the terribly unsexy rough hotel washcloth and bar soap.  But he kept getting distracted by her mouth and ended up kissing her, eventually dropping the washcloth, its task forgotten.  Their kissing quickly escalated, and, despite water's terrible friction properties, he lifted her up against the tiles.  Her legs wouldn't hold, though, and so then it was a matter of finding which surface of her room would serve their purposes on their way back to the bed.  The dresser.  Up against the wall.  Even the windowsill.  They finally toppled to the floor, though he murmured that he had been aiming for the edge of the bed when she protested.   

Finally,  _finally_ satiated, they leaned back against the edge of the bed on the floor, her leg draped over his, his hand idly stroking her thigh.   

Hailey spoke first.  "I've  _missed_  this." 

"This?" 

"Yeah."  She motioned between them.  "Like –  _this."_  

He gave her a post-coital blissful smile.  "What, like...us, together?" 

"Yeah, together like this."  She smiled at him.  "We were always at our best like this."  She interlaced her fingers through his.  "No misunderstandings, no...'dramas,' as you would say."  She giggled. 

"Mm."  The bliss was starting to fade.  "You mean like – the sex?" 

"Yeah."  She kissed his shoulder.  "Haven't you missed the sex?" 

"Well, yeah."  He blew out a sigh.  "I have missed sex.  I've really, really missed sex – like so much.  So, so,  _so_ much."  He threw his head back against the bed.  "Wow.  I've really missed sex." 

Hailey shot him a questioning look.  "I meant – with me," she began slowly.  "Sex with me, but...are you saying you haven't had sex recently?" 

Rodrigo shook his head.  "No.  It's been..."  His face screwed up in thought.  "A year?  No, more than a year.  A year and...two months?  A year and a month?" 

" _What_?"  Hailey was flabbergasted.  "You haven't had sex in  _over a year_?  I didn't think that was possible!" 

"Oh, yeah, yeah, it's possible."  His tone was light, conversational even.  "You know monks never have sex.  Neither do priests." 

"Well, yeah, I know that  _some_ people don't have sex, but that's like - an occupational choice.  I meant - I didn't think it was possible for  _you_ not to have sex for that long."  She squeezed his thigh meaningfully.  "I feel bad for the women out there that have been missing out."    

He gave her a self-satisfied smirk.  "Yeah.  They have definitely been missing out, yeah." 

"Whywould you not have sex for over a year?  Have  _you_  been living as a monk somewhere?" 

He caught her hand, kissing her wrist, tucking her hand underneath his collarbone.  "No, no.  Nothing like that." 

"Then why?"  She turned, leaning into him and capturing his leg between hers as she curled into him.  "Why have you been depriving yourself  _and_ all of womankind for so long?" 

His face grew serious.  "Well because..."  He let out a sigh.  "Because..." He glanced at her, then quickly away, an unmistakable shadow falling over his face.  "You know – I don't want to talk about it.  I don't want to talk about it." 

"Were you like injured or something?" 

He scoffed.  "No.  No, no, nothing like that." 

"Then why?  There mustbe a good reason..."  She laid a soft kiss on his neck, then under his ear.  "For you to keep all  _this_  to yourself." 

"Hai Lai..."  His hand caught her chin, making her look at him.  "I don't want to talk about it.  Okay?  We are here, now.  We are together."  He kissed her softly.  "That's what matters." 

She let the kiss last a few seconds before pulling away.  "Actually, I was thinking," she started, tracing patterns over his chest.  "I'm in Italy for another two weeks.  We could like go travel around together, see some sites..."  Her voice dropped.  "Make up for allll the lost time..."  She started kissing below his ear and down his neck again, prompting an  _mmm_ from him.  "Maybe end up spending a lot of that time in hotel rooms instead..." 

Her kissing took her lower, her lips moving across his chest, stretching her leg over his so she was straddling him again.  His hands found her hips but instead of guiding her onto him, he stilled them.  "Wait.  Wait, Hai Lai, wait."   

She tilted her head, pursing her lips in mock sympathy.  "Too tired?" 

He shot her one of his patented  _are_ _you_ _crazy_ looks.  "No, no.  But if we spend the next two weeks seeing sites together, maybe -"  His voice dipped. "Well – maybe spending a lot of that time in hotel rooms, which – okay, hotel rooms are nice, but -" 

"It doesn't have to be hotel rooms."  She nipped at his ear.  "It can be motels, hostels – though sometimes that's hard if you're bunking with people, sooo we could do Airbnb.  Can you imagine having a whole  _house_ to ourselves?"  She giggled. 

"Okay, so yes, these two weeks sound – they sound, very,  _very_ good, but what about after?" 

She pulled back to look at him, certain she had misheard.  " _After_ the two weeks?"  

"Yes.  Are we together after the two weeks?" 

Shifting her weight uncomfortably, she dropped her hands from his chest.  "I dunno - I mean, we can play it by ear, I guess."   

"No, no, I don't want to play it by ear."  His serious tone was blunting her arousal.  "I want to know what is going to happen."  He motioned.  "Between you and me." 

It was so unlike him, it nearly struck her dumb.  “You want to know what's going to happen between us two weeks from now?” 

“Yes.” 

Her thigh muscles were starting to protest her position so she pushed off from him, settling back on her haunches.  "I'll – go back to New York, aaaand..."  She gave him a nonchalant shrug.  "That will be that."  

Rodrigo nodded slowly, his gaze turning inward.  "So we are together for the two weeks, and then – we are not anymore?" 

"Well...you know where to find me." Laying a hand on his knee, she gave it a squeeze. 

He nodded again, but his smile was unconvincing, the wheels in his head clearly turning. 

Sensing that the mood had been thoroughly killed, she got to her feet.  "I'm gonna go clean off again.  Be right back." 

After she shut the door of the bathroom, she leaned against it, more than a little unsettled.  Since when was he a planner?  Emotional Butterfly Rodrigo de Souza, flitting from moment to moment, wanting to know what would happen after two weeks?  Why couldn't he just focus on their explosive sexual chemistry and take the opportunity to have as much sex as possible in  _fucking Italy_?  Letting out a sigh of exasperation, she glanced at herself in the mirror.  Her hair was still slightly damp, in addition to being sex-mussed, her lips kissed raw and pink.  Maybe he just needed a little convincing.  Spotting one of her lip glosses, she dabbed some on her lips, making a kissy face at the mirror.  Hmmm...or maybe she needed to be more  _alluring_.  Swiping an extra-large t-shirt off the hook, she tugged at the collar until it was more off-the-shoulder.   

 _If he passes this up, he's crazier than I thought._  

But her sexy come-on died on her lips when she opened the door.  There sat Rodrigo on the bed, his posture and body language anything  _but_ sexy:  boxers on, shirt hanging off of him, half-buttoned.  His head in his hands. 

"Hey," she called from the doorway of the bathroom.  "You okay?" 

"I fucked up."   

She frowned at that, advancing a few steps forward.  "What?  How did you fuck up?" 

He gave a few heavy sighs but didn’t answer. 

Hailey tried to think of what could have led to such a hairpin turn-of-mood.  He'd been pretty insistent that she seemed "not like herself" earlier.  Was he worried that he'd taken advantage of her somehow? 

"Look, I know that you were all worried about me being drunk, but I can pretty much guarantee you that I wanted  _all_ of this."  She gave him a sultry smile. 

" _Ai,_ Hai Lai, this is not about  _you_!"  He shot at her, though his look immediately turned pained.  "Sorry.  I'm sorry.  But this is not about you."  

"Um...okaaaay."  She sat down on the edge of the bed, watching him furiously button his shirt.  "So then you wanna tell me what's going on?" 

Rodrigo shook his head, fixated on his shirt.  "What is going on is...what is going on is I fucking fucked up, and I do not know how to fix it." 

"Yeah, that - that doesn't really tell me anything." 

"I'm sorry.  I can't talk about this.  I have to go.  I have to go."  And reaching for his pants, he yanked them into his lap. 

Something dropped out of the pocket, clattering to the floor. 

A small, black velvet box. 

Hailey gasped, momentarily panicking that it was for  _her –_ but that quickly dissipated when Rodrigo swiped it up, holding it between his hands and pressing it to his forehead. 

"Is that...?" 

He tucked it under his chin, his gaze raised to the heavens like he was beseeching some God she knew he didn't believe in.  Then his eyes closed, his chest heaving like he was trying desperately not to cry. 

" _Shit_ _._ "     

She stared at the floor as the implications sunk in:  that he was attached.  That he was with someone. 

Someone else. 

He pulled his pants on, tucking the box back into his pocket, doing up his belt.  As he hunted for his socks, Hailey couldn't restrain herself any longer.  "Were you – planning on proposing to someone tonight?" 

He slipped his socks on, then his shoes.  "No, Hai Lai.  I was not planning on proposing.  I have already proposed."  He looped his scarf around his neck.  "And she said yes." 

She gaped at him, not comprehending.  “You’re engaged?” 

“Yes.  I got engaged tonight.  Right before I ran into you at the  _Bottiglia_ _Vuota_.” 

"Oh."  Rodrigo.  Engaged.  Not like he hadn't been engaged before, but...  "Wait.  It wasn't Ana-Maria, was it?" 

" _Ai_ , no.  No, no – I haven't seen Ana-Maria in several years.  Last I heard she was still a nun, I think." 

"Oh."  Hailey struggled to process everything, her thoughts clouded by the limoncello and her hormones that still noticed every line and curve through his shirt as he fiddled with his cuffs.  She shook her head, trying to clear it.  "So it's...someone else." 

"Yes.  Nadia."  And the way he said the name was so full of love, of regret – a plea and a prayer, all breathed out on a sigh. 

"Huh."  The beginnings of jealousy swirled within her, for this woman who would get to have all  _that_  to herself when... "Wait.  I thought you said you hadn't had sex in over a year." 

"Hai Lai, I don't want to talk about this, okay?  I don't want to talk about this."  He donned his jacket, straightening out his sleeves.  "I have to go." 

"Rodrigo - wait!"  She got to her feet as he opened the door, slowing her approach at the sour realization that she had no right to his personal space anymore.  "I'm sorry, but you didn't say anything.  I had no idea." 

Closing his eyes, he let his head fall against the door.  "I know.  I know I did not say anything.  But that was because..."  The flash of longing was so intense she almost  _felt_ it, but it was gone, replaced by sad resignation.  "I have to go."   

"Okay." 

He placed a hand on her cheek, then leaned forward and kissed her brow.  "Goodbye, Hai Lai." 

And it sounded like  _farewell_ , not  _see you later_.   


	3. Some Random Guy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: There are discussions of pregnancy and abortion-related things. Please take care of yourself as needed! Skip it if reading about any of that will be upsetting to you. 
> 
> Thank you for the comments that let me know that I wasn't just throwing this out into the ether of the web! :) I also appreciate the kudos. I know how tiny this fandom is so hearing from y'all is immensely gratifying! (and motivating! Seriously, it literally got me out of bed yesterday to work on a chapter before I went to work. :)) Things are starting to take shape with this chapter, so you'll get an idea of where this is going. Hope you enjoy! :)

Lizzie had made a lot of harebrained mistakes in life.  Starting at age 14 when the decision to try a cigarette had quickly spiraled into a night that included booze, pot, and a joyride with Lance Stetson, the suave, pretty boy junior that all the girls wanted.  That joyride had  _not_ been one of her brighter moves, as one quick swerve to the right could have sent them careening into the giant oak that appeared out of nowhere on those dark, curvy roads, leaving her paralyzed or worse.  There was the time she’d agreed to follow some popular kids to an old, abandoned warehouse to graffiti it, which was a night that ended when someone called the cops and she’d had to make the most terrifying phone call of her life to her dad to come bail her out (well – pick her up, because her parents had their weird, Mafia-like connections, and a few phone calls to the right people and promises of campaign donations had expunged her permanent record for good.)  In college, it escalated to the point of sheer stupidity at times:  like when she was a sophomore and decided to try three drugs in one night or that time she led the charge to streak past the dean’s house in protest of the campus sexual harassment policy (someone should have thought that one through more, but Lizzie hadn’t had many sober days in college so it wasn’t really her fault.  Someone should also have thought through the recent rain and the freezing temperatures that had turned the puddles to black ice.  She hadn't been able to sit down for a week.)  And the list of completely, utterly, dumbfoundingly  _idiotic_ dating decisions?  Well – there were too many to name.

Yet, if there was one thing Lizzie prided herself on?  She’d never had a pregnancy scare.  Sure, there had been the broken condom here, the forgotten doses of birth control there, a late period, a particularly weird incident with a diaphragm (she still wasn’t sure how those fucking things worked) – but she considered it something of a badge of honor that she had never had to buy a pregnancy test in her life.  

So she never in a million years would she have thought she’d currently be sitting on the edge of  _Hailey Darn Rutledge’s_  bed, feeling Hailey’s leg bounce or watching her pace back and forth while they waited to see if her night with some random guy in Italy had knocked her up.

“How'd you meet this guy again?"

The question seemed to fluster Hailey.  "At a bar," she said hurriedly.  "Just at a bar."

"And was he an Italian stallion?"

“No, he was – Spanish.”

Ha.  Hailey certainly had a type.  “Spanish like from Spain?  Or Spanish like from –“

“From Spain.  He was from Spain."  

“Well, was he hot?”

“…yeah, he was…yeah.  How much longer?”

Lizzie glanced at the timer on Hailey's phone.  “Still another two minutes.”

Hailey let out a pained noise.  Clearly, Lizzie’s distraction tactics weren’t working.

“Hey, what have I been saying?  You have –“

“Options, I know.”

“Good.  Just - we don’t know anything yet, and hey, it’s possible that your hot Spanish dude was firing blanks, you never know.”

That stopped Hailey in her tracks, her head cocking to the side.  “I never thought about that.”

“Yeah, low sperm count is actually more common than you’d think.”  Lizzie put as much certainty into her words as possible, despite them being completely made up.  “It’s one of the things they check for first when a couple can’t get pregnant.  Historically, they always blamed the woman, but most of the time?  It’s the men who are the problem.”

“Huh.”  Hailey sat down on the bed.  “So even if I wasn’t on birth control, we didn’t use a condom, we had sex three or four times,  _and_ it was supposedly during my ‘flowery’ period, according to my period tracker app thingy – it’s possible none of that matters?”

“Yup.”  And Lizzie took on an air of complete nonchalance.  “You might get three negatives here.”

“Well – if I get all negatives, I’m still making a doctor’s appointment.  Just to be on the safe side.”

“Right, of course.”  They were going to the doctor regardless.  Lizzie had already cleared her schedule.  

“How much longer?”

“Another minute.”  

“Okay.”  And Hailey was up again, wearing a hole in the floor.  Lizzie thought quickly for another distraction.

“Hey, how’s your dad doing?”

Judging by the tightening of the lines around Hailey’s mouth, that had  _not_ been the best question to ask.  She could almost feel the weight settling into the air around them.  “He’s okay.  He’s been home for about a week now, though I guess it takes a while for someone to recover from a coma, according to my mom.”

“That makes sense.  That bullshit you see on TV or in the movies when someone wakes up from a coma and is like ‘hey, what’s up?  What’d I miss while I was half dead and my brain wasn’t properly functioning?  Let me get out of this bed and go declare my undying love to my high school sweetheart who’s about to marry that douche she met at the company Christmas party’ – wait…is this an actual movie?  Now I can’t remember.”   

“Uhh, I don’t know.  But yeah, it takes people time to learn how to like talk again and think again and…sometimes things like taking care of yourself are hard.  Though it could also be because of his injury…”

It might have been a shitty distraction, but it was working.  “I thought you said your mom had hired someone to help, right?”

“Yeah, she’s had someone coming to show her how to – deal with him.  Just until he gets better, though.  It just might take a little while for him to heal.”

“Of course,” Lizzie chimed in enthusiastically.  “I mean, even a concussion can take months to heal.  I think that’s what was wrong with Bradford.  He wasn’t the same after he hit his head when we went bungee jumping in the Maldives.”

“Yeah.  Like - the doctors said that even though the brain is really complex and fragile, it’s still a part of the body.  If it’s been injured, it needs time to heal.  And it  _will_ heal.  It just might take a while to determine how much on the – ‘the spectrum of healing.’”  She paused.  “How about now?”

“What?  Oh.”  Lizzie glanced at the timer as it ran down to 0, punching the Stop button before it could sound the alarm.  Hailey didn't need to hear that right now.  “Yep.  We’re at the three-minute mark.”  She gave Hailey a look that she hoped conveyed both encouragement and support.  “You ready?”

“No.”  And Hailey sank down on the bed, pregnancy test clutched in hand.  Lizzie heard her take some noisy breaths.  “Oh my God.  Okay.  I can – I can look.  It’s just a symbol.  I can…”  She started to raise her hand and then thrust the test in front of Lizzie.  “Nope, no, I can’t.  Can you look?”

Lizzie leaned over, peering at it.  “I can’t – you need to move your thumb, Hales.”

“Just please take it, Lizzie!”

“Okay, okay.”  She was suddenly nervous herself as she glanced down at it…reading a very clear positive sign.  She looked back at Hailey, who was sitting with eyes squeezed shut.

“Just tell me.  Just say it.”  Her voice was strained.

Lizzie took a breath, aware of delivering the information that could change her best friend’s life forever.  “It’s positive.”

Hailey opened her eyes, glancing first at the ceiling as if cursing God and then off to the side, nodding slowly all the while, pressing her lips together as tell-tale tears formed in her eyes.  

Lizzie didn’t know if Hailey wanted to be hugged, so she bumped her shoulder lightly.  “Hey…we’ve still got two more tests.  They might say different things?”

Hailey nodded again.  “Yeah.  Okay, can you just look and – and tell me if they say anything different.”

Lizzie gathered the other pregnancy tests, letting out a sigh at what she saw.  The right (wrong) amount of lines; the right (wrong) color.

“Do they say anything different?”

She hated being the bearer of bad news.  “No.  But –“ Her hand shot out, lightly curling over her best friend’s shoulder.  “We’re going to make a doctor’s appointment ‘cause these things can be jacked up.  And then you’ll know for  _sure_.”

Hailey hastily wiped at her tears as she collected all the pregnancy tests together, throwing them in the bag they came in and tying the bag in a knot.  “I already know.  It’s all going to be positive.”

“Yeah, but even if it is, Hales,” Lizzie called out as Hailey left the room to deposit the bag in the wastebasket.  “This doesn’t have to be it.”

Hailey reappeared, arms folded tightly around her.  “Right.  Options.”

“Exactly.  You don’t have to have some random guy’s baby if you don’t want to.”

Hailey nodded, her gaze averted.  “Yeah,” she murmured.  “Some random guy.”

***

The doctor’s appointment had gone predictably, though Lizzie had schooled the young male MD when he congratulatedHailey –  _“Do you think this is the fucking 50's?  You don’t fucking CONGRATULATE a woman on being pregnant, you fucktard – what if she had been raped?_ ”  The young doctor had sputtered out an apology, even after Hailey had quickly assured him that she hadn’t been raped, that she had given full consent (though she’d weirdly stumbled over the word “consensual”) – and so Lizzie had asked around, done the research and found the women’s clinic they were currently at.  Lizzie had had to employ some of her persuasive tactics to get her an appointment at Hailey’s preferred time – “ _I want it to be when there aren’t any kids around, so like not when schools are getting out or kids are going to school_ ” – but she’d finagled her a 10:30 appointment and had brought plenty of things to distract her with.

“Okay, okay – listen to this one.  ‘When getting ready for a date, do you a) throw on a coat of lip gloss – hey, he should be able to handle me without makeup!; b) do a light foundation, some eye liner, a cute outfit and heels – good to go!; c) try on at least 3 outfits and 3 different pairs of shoes – all heels, of course! or d) full wax the day before – you never can be too careful!’  A full wax the day before?!  What if he's gross?  I'm not wasting all that money.”

“Um…B, I guess.”

Lizzie circled it, glancing surreptitiously at her phone in case Hailey asked about the time, though she actually hadn’t for that whole half hour.  In fact, she’d been completely the opposite of her Normally Nervous Hailey.  Lizzie had seen her through a ton of anxiety-inducing times in her life – what with the auditions all the time - and usually when Hailey was nervous, she talked a lot, paced, moved around.  She didn’t completely shut down like she was doing now, adapting the thousand yard stare and taking a few seconds to respond to questions.  Frankly, it was freaking Lizzie the fuck out.  

“You okay?  You’ve been like  _weirdly_ quiet.”

“Yeah,” was the automatic response, addressing a spot on the floor two feet in front of her.  “Yeah, just…you know.”

“If you’re having second thoughts –“

“I’m not.”  And she met Lizzie’s eyes for a second before skidding away.  “I’m good.”

Lizzie raised her eyebrows, though she directed it at the dumb quiz instead.  “Okaaay.  You ready for the next one?”

“Rutledge?”

She didn’t sense Hailey tensing so much as she seemed to go completely still.  Like she might even have stopped breathing.  

“Hales?”  Lizzie gave her a gentle nudge.

Hailey didn’t respond.

“Rutledge?”  the woman called again.

“Yeah, that’s us!”  Lizzie motioned, standing up and facing her best friend, who literally looked rooted to her chair.  “They’re calling you,” she said, keeping her tone soft.

Hailey gave a jerky nod.  “Yeah.”  Then, as if in slow motion, she gathered her things and stood up.  

The woman had noticed them now, stepping forward a little.  “This way.”  She motioned with her hand, giving a kind smile.

“Thanks – we’re – we’re coming.”  And, thinking quickly, Lizzie stepped next to Hailey, offering her arm.  “You wanna hold onto me?”

Hailey stared at Lizzie as if just noticing her, her features literally crumpling before her eyes.  “I can’t,” she rasped.  "I'm sorry – I just -  I can't."  And turning on her heel, she made a beeline for the exit.

Lizzie swore under her breath.  “Hales!”  She started to run after her, then stopped, spinning around and addressing the woman who was still waiting patiently with clipboard in hand.  “I’m sorry – I just need to talk to my friend – can you give us like five, maybe ten minutes?”

The woman’s expression said this wasn’t the first time she’d seen this reaction.  “We can hold your friend’s slot for up to ten minutes, but after that, you’ll have to reschedule.”

“Thanks! It’ll just take a second, promise!”

She found Hailey pressed against the side of the building, arms wrapped tightly around her, tears streaming fast and furious down her cheeks.  Like if she pushed hard enough, she could just meld with the building, disappearing completely.

Not that Lizzie blamed her.

“Hey.”  Lizzie sidled up to her, aware that Hailey was always more likely to talk about the topics she hated most if there wasn't eye contact involved.  “Talk to me.  What do you wanna do?”

Hailey wiped at her tears, shaking her head.  “I don’t – I don’t know.  I just – I can’t - I  _can’t_  do it.  I  _can’t_ go through with it.”

Lizzied nodded, sympathetic.  “I get it.  It’s a big deal.”

“Yeah.”

“So – do you wanna go home?  Think about it some more?”

Hailey shook her head again.  “I can’t – I  _can’t_  do it – today or tomorrow or next week.  I just…I can’t.”  And she shot Lizzie a forlorn look like she’d let her down.  “I’m sorry.”

“Whoa, dude – you’ve got  _nothing_ to be sorry about!  I was planning on taking this afternoon off anyway since the Naked Circus is still on tour.  What’s more important is – what  _do_ you wanna do?  ‘Cause we’ve got more than one option here.  There’s adoption.  You’ve always got some poor rich people who can’t have a kid, adopting cast-offs from teen moms who are strung out on coke and stuff.  Yours would probably be a giant step up for most of them.”

Hailey shook her head again, like it was all she was capable of doing.  “No, I can’t…I couldn’t just give it to some strangers.”

“Okay, well, do you know anyone who wants to adopt?  Or anyone who ever mentioned that they  _really_ wanted to have kids recently?”

For some reason, this made Hailey cry more.  “No, not…not recently – I mean…no.”

Lizzie tried to think.  “Well – could you be like a surrogate for someone?  Don’t couples pay people to be their surrogate?  I hear you can make a fuck-ton of money that way, too.”

“No – I ‘m not giving it up, and I think that if someone is already pregnant, that’s just adoption because either the woman gets impregnated with the man’s sperm or she carries an embryo that was made in a lab or something.”

“Okay.”  Lizzie ran through her list of options in her head.  It was down to one.  

“Argh!"  Hailey splayed her hands out, hands balled in fists.  "If I had just been able to get a Plan B pill in time!"

"I know."

"Fucking North Carolina..."

Lizzie rubbed her shoulder, not wanting Hailey to rehash  _that_ upsetting saga.  Poor girl had gotten news about her dad's accident, had to travel like 48 hours to finally get to the hospital, was trapped at the hospital while she waited for her dad to wake up because her mom kept running off for errands, then because she was in the middle of conservative bumfuck North Carolina, the box she'd  _finally_ picked up from the Wal-Mart two towns over had been expired, and it was after the recommended 72 hours.  It was like the fucking universe had conspired against her, and Lizzie had had to comfort her as she wailed her regrets at not taking Lizzie's advice and getting an IUD before Italy, but how could she know she'd meet some random guy... 

Lizzie waited, but Hailey didn’t say anything else.  “So – have you decided to keep it?”

She heard Hailey’s head thud against the concrete again.  “I am  _not_ in the position in my life to have a baby.  Like – this is the worst possible time, when I'm  _finally_ starting out on my career.  I mean, yeah, I have health insurance at least, but I don’t have anyone to help or support me – it’s just the  _worst_ time.”

Lizzie nodded.  “Yeah.  Of course.  You don’t have to let this ruin your life.  I mean, seriously – a one-night stand with some random guy should  _not_ derail your career and your future, and if you decided you wanted a baby in the future, you could wait until you had a guy who would support you and it, and…Hales?”

She had started crying again, more forcefully this time, eventually sliding down the building so she was sitting on the sidewalk.  Lizzie slid down to join her.  “Hales?”

Hailey had curled into a ball, arms wrapped around her legs.  “It wasn’t…it wasn’t some random guy.”

Lizzie hadn’t been expecting that.  “It wasn’t?  Wait…did you have a boyfriend while you were there?”

Hailey shook her head.  “No, but…”  She let out a sigh like she had just lost an internal battle.  “I ran into Rodrigo one night.”

“ _Rodrigo_?”

Hailey nodded.  “It was at a bar.  Literally he walked out of a bathroom and almost ran into me.”

And all of a sudden, Hailey’s weird-ass behavior made  _perfect_  sense.  “ _Fuck_.”

“Yeah.”

“It was just that one night?  Why didn’t you see him again?”

“’Cause he had justgotten engaged, like literally that night.  Which I didn't know till afterward.”

“But he slept with you – wait, of course he did – it’s fucking  _Rodrigo_.”

“Yeah.  Also 'cause I kinda threw myself at him.  Fucking limoncello.”

“Hales, I think even if he had been engaged to  _Gal_ _Gadot_ , you wouldn’t have had to try to get Rodrigo into bed with you.”

“Gal Gadot’s married.”

“Do you have to remind me?”

“To a man.”

“And what, you think her undeclared bisexuality makes her any  _less_ hot?”

It worked, Hailey’s lips quirking just the teeniest bit.

“I’d have Gal Gadot’s baby.  Fuck, I’d have  _all_ of them.”  She paused, her hand squeezing Hailey's knee.  "The question is...do you want to have Rodrigo's?"

Lizzie was familiar with this particular emotional reaction, especially when it came to Rodrigo:  exasperation. "No!  I don't  _want_ to have Rodrigo's baby, but...I don't know if I can't  _not_ have it."

"Okay.  So – let's say you'd run into another ex while you were in Italy, like – Alex, remember him?"

It was almost comical how surprised Hailey looked at hearing that name.  "Alex the dancer?  Wow.  I haven't thought about him in forever.  I think the last I heard he'd gotten into the Joffrey?"

"Yeah, and he takes a nice vacation to escape the ice box that is Chicago, and you run into him and you hook up.  Would you be in there right now?"  Lizzie jerked her head towards the clinic.  

For some reason this seemed to frustrate Hailey.  "Yeah, of course I would."

"Okay.  So what if it had been another ex, like that guy Eric – Winklesvoss?  Winklestein?"

"Eric Winklestrauss?"  The way she said his name provided all the answer Lizzie needed.  "Yeah, not even an issue.  But..."  She let out a sigh.  "I don't know."

Lizzie was well-acquainted with the blind spot that was Hailey's stubborn refusal to acknowledge fucking  _anything_ when it came to her feelings for Rodrigo.  First, it was that she wasn't silently pining for him; next, that they weren't actually dating; then, that they were dating, but it wasn't serious.  And Lizzie had tried – oh  _man_ , had she tried.  Suggesting that maybe Rodrigo wasn't just "saying" words because he liked to say them.  That maybe he liked to call her his girlfriend and himself her boyfriend because he  _liked_ being her boyfriend.  From where Lizzie was standing, being a "boyfriend" seemed like a revolutionary concept for Rodrigo, but Hailey couldn't seem to see that.  And her claim that "he's saying that he loves me now" was again, just him  _saying_ things _?_ When anyone with a pair of eyes – hell, even someone who was fucking  _blind_ could see, hear, sense - how head-over-heels that man was for her?  

But to Hailey?  It was always this insistence that it was just a phase, that he'd get over it.  To the point where she had been in deep,  _deep_ denial that she hadn't been utterly wrecked when he basically sacrificed his job and career for her and walked out of her life, removing his "orbit" from hers entirely, as she'd so desperately claimed she wanted.  So getting Hailey to realize that she was probably never going to let go of this baby because of all of her unacknowledged feelings for him?  Lizzie would date issue-ridden fucktard Bradford again before Hailey would ever admit to  _that_.  

"I think it's because I've never been with a guy who wanted kids so much.  Like – he had been mentioning having kids for a while before we were even dating."  

Lizzie nodded.  "Mmm, yeah.  But I don't know – what if Eric Winkle – strauss?  Winklestrauss?  Had been singing the same tune.  'Oh Hailey, the only thing I love more than making a shit-ton of money is the thought of you having my babies?'"

Now she got outright disgust.  "Eww.  No."

Lizzie shrugged her shoulders as if to say  _I rest my case_.  Damn, she would've made a good lawyer.  "So there you go."

Another thump of her head against the wall of the building.  "I think it's that if I ever saw him again, and I'd gotten rid of it...I wouldn't be able to not tell him.  God, I don't think I could look him in the eye.  And I know he'd never forgive me."

Lizzie shifted her legs to the side, trying not to think about how dirty the sidewalk probably was.  "Okay.  So let's say you're not.  Let's say he - I don't know – he follows in his crazy ex's footsteps and joins a monastery in Tibet to commune with the Universe and Yahweh or something."

"Yahweh is the Hebrew word for God."

"Whatever.  He's found Buddha and religion and he's going to devote his life to hearing the music of the spheres or some hippie shit."

Hailey's fond smile was almost secretive.  "He was always fascinated by dark matter."

"So he goes into a monastery, and you know you're never going to see him again.  He's gone.  No having to look him in the eye or be all guilty around him.  Would you be in there right now?"

Hailey's gaze was dragged reluctantly to the building behind her.  "Maybe," she finally said.

Yeah, that was for sure a  _no._

"Okay."  New tactic.  New plan.  "Let's say you actually wanted to have a baby.  But you're a feminist and fuck being attached to some guy forever, so you decide to get a sperm donor."

Hailey fixed her with an incredulous look.  "Because I'm actually choosing to be a single mom?"

"Yeah, 'cause you're all empowered and shit, whatever.  Point is – you're picking out a sperm donor.  What attributes are most important to you?"

Hailey sighed.  "I dunno...tall?  Broad-shouldered?  Handsome?"

"You're not picking a date; you're picking a sperm donor.  What attributes would you want this – totally hypothetical, not-real-at-all baby to have?  What kind of characteristics would you want in a child?"

Hailey leaned her head back, gaze fixed on the clouds.  "I guess – intelligent?"

"Check."

Hailey shot her a questioning look.

"What?  Rodrigo's intelligent.  I thought you said he was a genius."

"He's a musical genius; there's a difference.  He doesn't have like common sense."

"Okay, so - common sense.  Do you want your baby to have common sense?"

"I mean, I'd prefer it, but..."

"Okay, so intelligence and common sense.  What else?"

"I'd want them to be...a good person.  I'd want them to be kind."

"Okay, so – check."

Hailey didn't even protest.  "Yeah."

"What else?"

"I don't know...warm?  Easy-going but not...unambitious."

"Okay, so warm, easy-going but driven.  Check, check, check."

Hailey started fidgeting.  "Um – I'd prefer that they're not ugly 'cause life is harder when you're not attractive.  So - somewhat attractive?"

"Big, fat check."

Hailey rolled her eyes, but it was belied by a smirk.  "Believes in something?  Like I wouldn't want my child to just spend all their time on their phone or playing video games or something."

"So – passionate?  Check."

"But hard-working, too.  I don't want a kid who's just going to coast through life."

"Okay – check.  What?"  She posed when Hailey frowned at her.  "Someone who practiced the violin so much when he was a kid that he was fucking  _bleeding_ is hard-working."

Hailey turned to her.  "Okay, but you know what I don't want?"  She started ticking off on her fingers.  "I don't want crazy.  I don't want impulsive.  I don't want flighty and weirdly intense about things and someone who can't manage their own emotions without taking over everything, and someone who just fucking picks up and leaves without saying goodbye, and who you can't get in touch with even if you wanted to - which you don't - because they don't have a fucking phone!"      

Lizzie looped her arm through hers, the only gesture of support she could give without actually calling attention to how much Hailey missed him.  "Okay, so – sane?  Controlled.  Orderly.  High – EQ?  And...stays in touch, and I don't know – respects technology?  Uses technology?"

Hailey let out a groan.  "That sounds like I want a robot."

"A social robot!  With a high EQ."

Hailey muttered something about Fukimoto and asking him for a wham.  

"Huh?"

"Nothing."

"So...?  He's got a lot of the qualities you'd look for in a sperm donor already."

"Except for the crazy part."

"Well yeah, but that's why God invented Valium, Prozac and Xanax."

Hailey scrunched her skirt in her fists.  " _Fuck_!"  Letting out a huge sigh that turned into a strangled groan, she didn't speak for a minute or so.  "Rodrigo's baby," she finally said.

"Rodrigo's baby."

"A – miniature version of Rodrigo, running around in the world, being crazy and impulsive and saying weird things that make  _no_  sense -"

"And yet everyone loves it anyway -"

"Who flits from thing to thing and has the attention span of a gnat for some things and then can get lost in something for hours and hours for others -"

"Who might be a musical prodigy itself -"

"Who demands to be paid attention to and throws a fit when it isn't."

"Okay, now you just described an actual baby."  She tugged at Hailey's arm, resting her head on her shoulder.  "Think of it this way:  you've already had practice with him.  The only difference will be that the things it does will actually be  _acceptable_  'cause it'll be a baby."

"Yeah."  Hailey got to her feet, pulling Lizzie up with her.  She had looked less miserable at the prospect of a root canal.  "Oh my God, Lizzie, a baby.  A fucking  _baby_."

"I know."

"And not just a baby, but a baby who will become a child and then a teenager and then go off to college -"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa - slow down there, dude."  Lizzie stroked at Hailey's hair, the emergency soothing gesture she'd learned early on in their friendship.  "You're not giving birth today, okay?"

"Okay."  She nodded before blanching.  "Oh my God, giving birth.  Isn't that supposed to be like the  _worst_ pain you can ever experience?"

"Yeah, but again – there are drugs for that.  And like a million options for how you give birth, but dude – that's nine months from now."

Hailey looked like she might cry again.  Or possibly vomit.  Or both.  "I'm going to be a mom.  I don't know anything about being a mom!"

"I don't think anyone does before becoming a mom," Lizzie soothed, continuing to stroke at her hair.  "Hales – breathe.  You're not going to be doing this on your own, okay?"

"Okay."  She launched herself into Lizzie's arms, holding – no,  _clinging_  to her.  "Thank you.  I literally don't know what I'd do with you," she mumbled into her shoulder.

“Aw, c'mon, you know I've always wanted to be some kid's cool aunt.”

Hailey let out a choked laugh, wiping at her face.  “Yeah.  You will make the  _coolest_  aunt.”


	4. The Troubled Water Under the Bridge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are starting to take shape...though seriously, this chapter had to be divided into two, then three because it got so unbelievably LONG! (And part one is still clocking in at 4800 words, yikes!) Hopefully y'all can see where this is starting to go and figure out if you're still on board - it's going to be a ride! :)

_Two Years Later_

If someone had pressed Hailey later and asked her whether she eagerly anticipated or dreaded seeing Rodrigo again, she honestly wouldn't have been able to answer them with any degree of certainty.  The two years before Siena it had been so easy to have his memory fade.  But after Siena – she was reminded every day of his existence, the possibility of his return.  So should she have been surprised that his falling back into her life was about as dramatic and ridiculous as possible - and so very  _him?_

Probably not.  

Yet there she was, sitting with an open menu at Tomato Potato, a three-star restaurant that specialized in more upscale versions of 50's down-home cooking,replete with TV-dinner style trays, plastic cups and Bakelite utensils.  Unaware of the import of a harried waitress whose trays frequently wobbled as she skirted past, unaware that the wrong kind of lacquer had been used to refinish the hardwood floors that weekend, unaware that an elderly woman who had recently had her hip replaced was making her slow way back from her visit to the ladies' room.

Hailey's attention was fixated elsewhere, on her phone, as she awaited a text that could possibly signal the end of her dinner.  So while she should have been contemplating wine, she was glancing at her phone, nervously fiddling with it every time it buzzed before putting it back down.  But not before she'd checked the time, letting out a sigh as the minutes ticked by and her dinner companion remained absent.

Thus she missed the warnings one waiter issued to the harried waitress, the exclamations, the stumbled-over apologies and, and finally, the shout and the -

_Crash!_

There were a few surprised shrieks, though Hailey's wasn't one of them.  She just cocked her head to see what the commotion was about, noting with a grimace what looked like seven or eight large cups that had once held ice water, now rolling around on the floor, the waitress who had dropped the tray looking like she might cry at any second – but that was all Hailey saw because spills weren't exactly unexpected in restaurants, and at least she wasn't responsible for cleaning  _this_ one up.

This was her night off, after all.

Turning back to the volleying between menu perusal and checking of her phone, she missed the next events:  a man rounding the corner, walking at a clip; the warning issued too late, the  _thud_ and grunt when he hit the ground; the exclamations of concern – but when she poked her head around to see what  _this_ commotion was about, there were already people blocking the way when a woman let out another cry of surprise, and there was another  _thud_ , this one sounding harder than the last, accompanied by another grunt and cry of pain.

Now Hailey couldn't stay seated as there was general pandemonium, with people shouting to get help, a woman crying, and a man protesting -

"No, it's okay, it's okay – please attend to her first."

"We're going to get you help, Mrs. Yang – everyone please get  _back_!"

The crowd thinned, revealing the owner of that voice she'd know anywhere:  none other than the great Maestro Rodrigo de Souza.

Was it fate or destiny or the universe or something that had decided to imbue her life with this irony?  That the first moment she laid eyes on the father of her child, he would be sprawled out on the floor in a pose that was the spitting image of his progeny?  Flexing his feet and gesticulating wildly, the epitome of a temper tantrum?  But then Hailey blinked, shaking her head to rid herself of the image, and she saw that Rodrigo was trying to shoo away people who were fussing over him, to move them towards an older woman who lay perpendicular to him, her features twisted in obvious pain.  

It was this gesture of selflessness that allowed Hailey to find her voice at last.

"Rodrigo??"

She watched recognition flash across his face followed by a furtive searching until he found her in the crowd.

"Hai Lai??"

"Oh my God – are you okay?"

"Yes, yes, I'm okay.  I have just fallen and there is something with my ankle, but it's not bad."  He flexed it experimentally, wincing a little.  "See?"

After explaining that she was his friend, she was able to maneuver through the cluster of people and help him stand and hobble his way over to her booth.  One of the staff from the restaurant followed them and, after explaining that she was trained in First Aid, set to checking Rodrigo's injuries.  She recommended he keep his ankle iced and elevated for twenty minutes since it was likely he had "strained" it.  

Twenty minutes.  Hailey glanced at her phone, surprised to discover she had a text.

_Meeting’s running longer, another half_ _hr_ _, sorry_

Another half hour?  Well, then she could give Rodrigo twenty minutes.  

"So...Hai Lai!  Hello!"  He grinned widely at her.

"Hey!"  She smiled back at him, laughing a little.  

"How are you?"  

His enthusiasm was infectious, melting her earlier anxieties almost instantly.  "I'm good!  Better than you, though.  Are you okay?"  She gave him a sympathetic look.

He waved as if it was of no consequence.  "Eh, no, it's okay, it's okay.  I have had worse injuries from football.  Remember?  When I broke my nose at that party?"

"Yeah, I remember.  Your face was pretty messed up for a while."

"Yeah, and that was not even the worst of the injuries I have received from playing the beautiful game."

She huffed.  "I don't know – any injury that involves a trip to the emergency room is probably pretty bad."

"Oh yeah, that's right, I did have to go to the hospital for that one.  But I was okay, right?  Everything turned out okay." 

"I guess.  Since there wasn't any lasting damage..."

Her bar for severity of injuries had been raised significantly higher in the last two years.

"No, no.  Nothing that lasted.  So, Hai Lai..."  He reached out, tapping the table.  "What's up?!"  He grinned at her again.

"Um – shouldn't I be asking you that?  I didn't know you were in New York!  Are you visiting?"

"Oh, no, no, I live here now.”

"You  _live_ here?  When did you move here??"

"I've been here for...three, four months?  Yeah.  About four months."

"Wow.  Gloria didn't mention anything – are you staying with Gloria?"

"No, I am not living with Gloria."  He chuckled.  "I am living in my own place."

"Your  _own_ place?  You actually have a place?"

"Yes!"  He grinned.  "I actually have a place!"

"Wow, I kinda didn't think that was possible."  She giggled.

"I know, I know!  I have a place that is actually mine and I have, I have stuff – I have furniture.  I have actual furniture, Hai Lai!"

"That could probably be considered one of the Eight Wonders of the World or something.  Or maybe an exhibit in a museum - 'Rodrigo's Place with Actual Furniture.'"  She giggled again, though she immediately sobered as she considered something.  "Oh.  Right.  Is it...is it just you, or are you living with anyone?"

"No, no, it's just me.  Just me."  He sobered as well.

"Oh.  Well, it's just the last time I saw you you were with um – Nadia?"

A look of pain flashed across his face at the name, his head bowing briefly with the weight of it.  "Yeah, that didn't work out.  We are no longer together."

Their past hung heavy in the air between them, Hailey's responsibility with it.  "Oh.  I'm sorry."

He gave a little shake of his head.  "It's okay.  It's not your fault."

"Um... _yeah_ , it kinda is my fault, at least partially."  She tried to remember the wording she'd come up with should she ever run into him again.  "The thing is - I didn't even say hello or ask how you were.  I just - threw myself at you, and my behavior was really,  _really_ ridiculous and I'm sorry."

"Hai Lai,  _please_."  He held up a hand to stop her.  "Please.  Do not apologize, okay?  There is nothing - I don't want to talk about that night, okay?  I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay."  Her reply was small, strained.  His reaction had done nothing to ease her guilt, but then she remembered that he had gotten into a fight and been arrested that night.  Or at least, that was what the paper had said.  "Did you really get arrested that night?"

"Hai Lai."  His look was pleading.  "It was a long time ago.  Okay?  It's in the past, you know?  In the past.  I do not want to think about that night, it – it is the bridge over the water."  He frowned.  "Is that it?  The bridge over troubled water?"

She smiled in spite of herself.  "No, that's a Simon and Garfunkel song.  'Water under the bridge' is what you're looking for, I think."

"Water under the bridge.  The troubled water has flown under the bridge."  He wiggled his fingers in a flowing motion, sweeping his hand like he could sweep away their past.  "So all that troubled water - it has flown.  It is gone.  It is past."

Past.  Right.  Except that the way he moved his arm or wiggled his fingers was so clearly something her child had inherited - 

"Yeah.  It's past."

"Like – for you and me, it – it's like it didn't happen."  He splayed his hands out, shrugging his shoulders.  "It never happened."

And those big, dramatic motions -

"Right.  Never happened."

"We don’t talk about it, didn’t happen.  So it’s like – it’s been…four years since I’ve seen you.”  

Not that she was on pins and needles about a text that could come from the new babysitter, of course...

She plastered on what she hoped was her most convincing smile.  "Yeah.  Yeah, it really has been four years since we’ve seen each other."

"Good."  His grin was easy, nodding his head as if to signal  _that's that_.  “So – since it’s been four years, tell me!  Tell me – what have you been doing?”

She opened her mouth, poised to rattle off her well-used reply about diapers, sleepless nights, fights over food, the endless messes, the constant juggling act between raising a child and trying to eke out a career – then the words dried up in her throat and she was seized with the ridiculous impulse to start laughing.

She could just tell him.  For a second, she almost did.  

Rodrigo sensed her hesitation.  "Hai Lai?  Is everything okay?"

But – here?  In public?  When she was supposed to have a nice, quiet date night away from responsibilities, a night she had eagerly anticipated all week?  She didn't want to ruin that.  Call her selfish, but she didn't.  She didn't get to put herself first most of the time, and she needed to tonight.  The only thing she needed to worry about right now was whether the meeting ran any longer or whether she'd receive a frantic text from the babysitter.  

And honestly?  Rodrigo hadn't exactly earned the right to know right this second.  Not yet, anyway.  Hailey could feel things out gradually, see if he was capable of handling that kind of responsibility.  If he had changed at all.  

She was the mother.  She had the right to decide when, how, and  _if_ Rodrigo found out about their child.  

And if he called her out for the delay when she finally did tell him?  Well...she could figure that out later.  There would be more troubled water under the bridge, then, but it wasn't a bridge she had to cross yet.

“Um – yeah!  I’ve been playing in the orchestra – the New York Symphony still.”

“Oh, did you get a slot with them?”

“I – did.  But I just sub in now.”

Rodrigo was incredulous.  “Wait, wait.  You had a slot with the New York Symphony, and you gave it up??  Why??”

Luckily, Hailey had a ready response for this that didn't involve the words "maternity leave."

“Because I – needed a looser schedule so I could make sure I kept up with my ensemble.  That was it.”  She put as much confidence into her voice as possible.  “I just – I needed more time for my ensemble, and so I went down to part-time as a sub, and it works great, it really does.  I sub in when I have the time, and I’m still a member so it works.”

“Okay, well – good!  I’m glad you are still conducting, that's good!”

“Yeah!”  She didn’t have to fake enthusiasm for this part.  “It is.  We now have Caroline Shaw as our unofficial composer in residence and play exclusively female composers.  And we've actually started getting approached to premiere up-and-coming composers a lot, like Darnal, Abbott, Hluchyj, even this really amazing Argentinian composer de la Parra."

"Oh, yes, yes, she has some very interesting stuff.  Very – earthy but with some sort of I don't know, otherworldly sounds that she incorporates into it."

"Exactly!  It's really incredible, and it's been so challenging at times, like with the frequencies she specifies for the  _Ad Hominem_  -"

"Yeah, I have never seen a composer write in such exact numbers in a score with the - the calibrations for the instruments -"

"I know!  It's like - where do I follow her exact instructions, and where can I put my own interpretive spin on this?  Which - I know, is the question you ask before you conduct any piece -"

"Yeah, but with her, I can see how you would spend more time you know, figuring out that line.  Because as conductors we are providing our interpretation of what is on the page, but with composers like her, there is a  _lot_ that she wanted to sound just exactly a certain way."

Hailey leaned forward in her enthusiasm.  "Exactly.  She's this mathematical, physics, music genius who studied air currents and did controlled experiments where she measured the f - the freaking vibrations of instruments and how they mixed together, recording what frequencies they vibrated best at, but then there's also that you need the right  _space_ for it."

"Yeah, yeah, you'd need a place with the right acoustics."  He leaned his chin in his hand, just staring and smiling at her.  “Oh, Hai Lai!”

She giggled.  "What?"

"I am just –" He started, leaning forward and placing his hand over hers.  "I am so  _proud_ of you, Hai Lai.  Look at you!  You have carved out your own special place for yourself, which you know, it's – it can be hard in this industry, to do that.  And especially for a woman, it is hard – I know it can be very hard.  But look at you!  You've done it!"  He flung his arms out to the sides.  "You did it!"

Smile stretched so wide she thought it might crack, she felt heat rise in her cheeks, unused to that special brand of blindingly bright, positive attention that only Rodrigo seemed capable of.  "Thanks."  

Taking her hand in both of hers again, he was all warmth and sincerity.  "Well, I hope you are very proud of yourself.  Very proud.  Because you should be."

And it felt like it had been so long since anyone had congratulated her on anything other than being a mom, that she was surprised to find tears pricking the corners of her eyes.  She laughed self-consciously, praying they would stay put and go unnoticed.  "Thanks," she said again.  "That..."  She had to clear her throat.  "That means a lot."

Squeezing her hand, his thumbs started stroking her knuckles.  "Well...you deserve it."  

His features had softened, and she found herself staring, yet not with the eyes of a lover.  This was with the eyes of an archaeologist, mapping out the shape of his chin, the breadth of his nose, the color of his eyes, the slant of his cheekbones.  Searching, plumbing the depths of the structure of his face, noticing the little similarities between his face and the face she knew better than anyone’s, the face she’d seen every day for over a year.  

But it must have looked akin to a lover's stare for a woman lightly cleared her throat with a polite, "Sorry to interrupt."

Rodrigo withdrew his hand as they both turned to see a tall, striking woman with dusky, bronzed skin standing next to their table.  She identified herself as Isobel Stefano, the manager of the restaurant, apologizing for the incident that had led to Rodrigo's injury, and assuring him that they were looking into the causes behind it and putting safeguards in place to ensure it didn't happen to anyone else.  She offered to comp his meal, handing him back the cash he'd left, but he insisted she take it and give it to his waitress, Mariah, who apparently was an aspiring musical theater actress.  She gave him her card and told him that he could call ahead any time and they would gladly host him and any guest or guests of his choice.  

"So if, for example, you'd like to return for...date night?"  Isobel lifted her perfectly sculpted eyebrows.

"Oh – we're not together," Hailey quickly asserted.

"Yeah, yeah, not together."  Rodrigo's reply was less assertive than hers.

"We're just friends."

"Yeah.  Good friends."

"And I have a fiancée."

"You do?"  Rodrigo's eyes shot wide.

Isobel seemed to have an impeccable sense of timing, as she reiterated the restaurant's commitment to ensuring the health and safety of their customers, tapping the card she had given to Rodrigo with one French-manicured fingernail and making a graceful exit.

Not wanting to return to the bombshell she’d just dropped, she nodded to the card Isobel had just left.  "She's trying to make sure you don't sue them."  

"Sue them??"  Rodrigo was aghast.  "Why would I sue them?"

Unable to look at him, she picked up her phone to check for messages again.  "Because sometimes companies screw up, and people get hurt."

"Yes, okay, this can happen, but suing them?  Why would you sue a company for that?  How does that solve anything?"

She kept her tone matter-of-fact.  "It doesn't.  But sometimes people get hurt badly, and it's the company's fault.  If they hadn't screwed up, the person wouldn't have gotten hurt."

"Yes, but suing is, is to get  _money_ , right?"  His tone was practically dripping with disgust.  "People sue so they can get money, always the money.  Why is it always the money?  How would getting money help anyone who has gotten hurt?"

She tried to keep her  _how stupid can you be_  look from fully settling into her features.  "If you get hurt, usually that means you need treatment.  And treatment costs money, even with health insurance."

Rodrigo shrugged, shaking his head.  "Yes, but accidents happen, right?  They can happen.  Money doesn't solve that."

It was a struggle to keep her tone even, as it kept creeping up into a dangerously emotional place.  "But sometimes people can get hurt so badly that they can't hold down a job anymore, and they can't make money anymore.  They can't do the things they used to do; they can't live on their own; they need help with everything so they basically need round-the-clock care, and that's not just a loss of income for right now, it's a loss of income for forever.  And round-the-clock care is expensive, and so are meds to keep them calm because maybe they got hurt so badly that they had a huge personality change and they get agitated a lot.  Then there's the fact that they're basically gone, even though they're still there so that has an impact on their loves ones, too." 

All traces of disgust wiped from his face, his gaze was fixed intently on hers.  "Hai Lai.  Did something happen or...?"

She folded her hands over her phone, slipping her poker face back on.  "I’m just saying.  Most people sue for greed, but not everyone does.  Sometimes people sue because a company really did f- screw up, and the company's screw-up completely changed their lives.  That's all."  

Desperate for a change of subject that wasn't emotionally charged, she picked up the menu, perusing it.  "You already ate, right?  What did you have?"

"Yes.  I had the - the potato hash."

"Was it good?"

Rodrigo made an equivocating gesture.  " _Mas o_ _menos_.  It was a little bland for my taste.  But I have different tastes, so you know, when they say spicy, I should know better."

"Mm.  Good to know.  Adi has the same problem."  Realizing her mistake a beat too late, Rodrigo jumped on it.

"Adi?  Is this your fiancée?"

She smiled, though it felt strangely shy.  "Yeah.  Adi is my fiancée."

“Well – that’s wonderful, Hai Lai!  Congratulations!”  

His smile seemed genuine enough, but she still had to ask.  “Really?”

“Of course!  I am very happy for you!  I have always wanted you to be – to be happy.”

It was a little unfair to use such a loaded phrase, but she couldn't help herself.  “Complete honesty?”

The wattage of his smile dimmed significantly, but what remained still seemed real.  “Yes.  Complete honesty.”  His face took on a more nostalgic cast, with just a hint of sadness.  “We – had our moment.  And…it was nice.”  His smile was wistful.  “You know, it was very nice.  But – it is past.”

Her snarky reply was belied by her fond look.  “The troubled water under the bridge?”

“Ehh, it was not all troubled, I don’t think.  Was it?  Or was a lot of it troubled?”

She smirked.  “Some of it was troubled, but for the most part…no.  That water was a lot smoother than I probably ever would have expected.”

“Really?”

She nodded, her smile real, too.  “Yeah.”

And there it was:  the post-mortem of their relationship.  The end of an era.  Case closed.  The significance of two former lovers sharing that look that their story was over and done.  That they had moved on.

Her phone buzzed.    

_Meeting over, getting an_ _uber_

Hailey rolled her eyes.  “Ugh.  Why doesn’t he ever take the subway?” she muttered.

“Who?  Adi?”

“Yeah.”  She placed her phone back down.  “He’s on his way, but he’ll be coming from Midtown, so with traffic – we probably have another half hour.”  She craned her head to see if maybe a waiter would materialize.  “I don’t know where my waiter went.”

“Oh, okay, well, it has probably been twenty minutes, so I can get going.”

“You don’t have to leave right this second, especially if your ankle is still bothering you.”

“No, no, it’s okay, I don’t want to –“  He made some indeterminate motion with his hands.  “To interrupt or interfere.  But – before I go, I would like to hear a little bit about him.”

“Ohh.”  Hailey smiled.  “Really?  That’s not going to be - weird?”

“No, of course not!  He is someone important to you; you are someone to me, you know, you are an important friend.  So – tell me!”

“Okay.  Well…Adi is English and Indian – well, his dad is Indian and his mom is English and Indian, and he grew up in this section of London called Chiswick.  And…he’s a CPA and works at a family law firm, though – he thought about going to law school, but his dad said he would make more money as an accountant so – that’s why he got his CPA.  And – he’s divorced, with two kids.”

“Wow.  He’s got two kids?”

“Yeah.  They’re six and eight – they’re really cute.”

“Six and eight?”  Rodrigo grinned, nodding.  “Yes, that’s very cute.  A very cute age.  So you will be like – another mother to them then!”

Hailey blanched.  “Well – I mean, they’ve already got a mom, and they spend a lot of time with her, so – not really.”

“Yes, but when you and Adi get married, you will be their second mother.  The step – the step-mother, right?”

“Yeah.  Technically.”

“That’s great, Hai Lai, you know – I always thought you would make such a good mother.”

She had to swallow her reply before it slipped out.  “Thanks.”

He seemed to interpret her reaction as panic at the mere idea of being a mother, for he reached across the table in a placating gesture.  “I didn’t mean – I’m not trying to force motherhood onto you, of course – you can do that when you are ready.  Unless you are getting married soon!  Are you?”

“No!  No, we haven’t even set a date yet, and we’ve only been engaged for like two months, so – no.”

“Okay, well, then – you have time.”  His smile was so sweet, it almost made her teeth ache.  “So how did you meet him?  Was it through Virgil or someone else in the orchestra?”

“Oh, no.  It was on a subway platform, totally random.  And also, he doesn’t know anything about music.”

Rodrigo might have looked less surprised if she’d told him Adi was from Mars.  “He doesn’t know anything about music?”

“Nope.  He thinks all classical music is ‘pretty,’ is actually how he’s described it.”

Rodrigo couldn’t seem to form a reaction to this.  “’Pretty?’”  He brought a hand to his temple, bursting his fingers forth like he was illustrating that this description had literally blown his mind.  “He – he thinks all classical music is ‘pretty?’”  

“Yeah.”  Hailey chuckled.  “Believe me, I had to give up on this argument a while ago.”  She shrugged.  “So we don’t share the same profession.  We have other things in common.”

“But…”  He was clearly still stuck on this term.  “’Pretty?’”  

“Is this seat taken?”  

Hailey whipped her head around to the source of the voice, finding the subject of their conversation standing right next to her table.  

“Adi -!  Hey!”  She stretched up on her tip-toes to hug him, obeying his no PDA rule.  “How did you get here so fast?!  Or do I want to know how much you paid off your uber driver to 'drive like a nutter?’”  

“No, my uber driver was frustratingly sane and drove well within the speed limit, unfortunately.”

“But you were in Midtown!”

“No, I wasn’t, love, I was ten blocks north of here.”  He flashed her a thousand-watt smile.  “I wanted to surprise you.”

“Awww.”  She wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her head against his chest, not wanting to stretch up on tip-toe again.  Adi stood a good six inches taller than her.

But she could feel him stiffen at what he would deem an excessive display of affection, and so she quickly released him, settling for snagging his hand instead.    

Rodrigo was already trying to get up, though he was clearly struggling a bit.  "Hello!  Hi!"

Adi noted the man occupying what would normally be his seat across from Hailey.  "Hello."

"Uh, Adi, this is Rodrigo de Souza, an old friend of mine."  

"Ah.  Lovely.  Aditya Desai, but everyone calls me 'Adi.'"  He shook Rodrigo's hand heartily.

"I'm Rodrigo, nice to meet you Adi!  Yes, very nice."  He gave up his struggle, falling back down and motioning apologetically to his ankle, which was still covered by an ice pack.  "Hai Lai was kind enough to let me stay here, and - and we have been catching up."

Adi gave Rodrigo a onceover, frowning.  "I noticed on my way in that there were some areas marked off with signs – did you injure yourself?"

"Yes, I slipped on the water that had spilled.  Slipped and tripped.  And then an older woman tripped over me and fell on me, but that was not her fault because I was right there in her path.  And Hai Lai was here, and she found me and helped me back to this seat.  I was told I needed to ice my ankle for at least twenty minutes before I could go, but it has been twenty minutes, so I can go now."

"No, no, not at all.  I'm always keen to meet Hailey's mates.  We can fit in on this side – scoot over, love."

All of a sudden, Hailey realized that Adi's presence was the wild card she hadn't taken into account.  And the two of them meeting each other... 

Rodrigo must have seen Hailey's hesitation.  "Oh, no, it's okay.  I have already eaten, and I do not want to interrupt your dinner."

"Rubbish!  I'm sure you have some fantastically embarrassing stories about Hailey that I haven't heard yet."  Adi grinned.  "How long have you two known each other?"

"About uh – six years.  But we haven't seen each other in four years, which was why we were catching up."

Did she sound nervous?  

"Yes," Rodrigo agreed enthusiastically.  "Four years of catching up - it's been a very long time!"

"Well, I can fill in some of the blanks for you, mate - at least for the last eight months."  He winked at Hailey.

Hailey's answering giggle bordered on hysterical.

Because yes, Adi could fill in the blanks for Rodrigo:  that in addition to the conducting, the ensemble, the orchestra, she had very conveniently left out one significant, time-consuming, all-encompassing,  _life-changing_ piece of her life.  

And now...penned in by Adi from one side and Rodrigo on the other, she was suddenly faced with the harrowing prospect of the lies she had told both of them spilling out into the open and ruining everything. 


	5. Siena

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one week! Hope you enjoy! :)

When Hailey was eight, she broke her father’s telescope.

It had been an accident, of course, but it was _after_ her father’s directive that she was never to touch it.  With her father at work, her mother had been the only witness that Hailey was anywhere near the telescope that afternoon, and so that evening during dinner, Hailey had been uncharacteristically quiet while she waited in terror to see whether her mother would unwittingly give her up.  But then she had apparently been _too_ quiet because her mother started asking her what was wrong, so she was forced to talk like nothing was wrong, answering questions about how school was that day, whether she had gotten her practicing hours in, trying to pretend like everything was normal.  The whole time hoping that the conversation wouldn’t return to her tell-tale presence in the living room that afternoon.  She thought about leaving the table, excusing herself to go play, but then what if that let her parents speak more openly?  What if her mom gave her away when she wasn’t there?  So she forced herself to remain in her seat, legs swinging wildly in her nervousness.

But Hailey couldn’t swing her legs now or even shake them like she used to when she was in high school – not when she was penned in by Adi on one side and Rodrigo on the other.  And not when they could both be frustratingly oblivious at changes in her mood, but sometimes astonishingly adept as well.  So she had to smile and engage in the conversation, navigating through topics like Adi’s ignorance of what being a former _maestro_ of the New York Symphony meant, his comparison of classical music to elevator music and Rodrigo’s indignant, horrified reaction to this, and Hailey having to cut off Rodrigo before he could suggest any more composers she could play him that might change Adi’s mind about classical music.

“He tries to make it to all my concerts when he can, so he really is very supportive,” Hailey assured Rodrigo, like that had been his main concern.  She leaned in and gave Adi an impromptu kiss on the cheek.

"Well, I try be."  Adi shifted, clearly uncomfortable with the gesture.  "As long as I don't have the kids, that is, so I haven't been able to make it to many of her weekend concerts."  Seeming like he desperately needed a change of subject, he looked pointedly at Hailey's phone.  "Speaking of, I assume no 911 yet."

Hailey shook her head, hoping that Rodrigo was distracted by something else.  "No.  So far so good."

"I don't know if Hailey told you, but we're on new babysitter watch, so we might have to dash if we get a text."

"No, she didn't, but that's okay, I understand."  Rodrigo grinned.  "That’s great that you have kids!  She said they are six and eight, right?"

Adi looked confused.  "Well, yeah, they are, but _my_ kids are with their mum most times during the week.  The babysitter is for Hailey's little hell-spawn."

_Fuck._

Trying to divert her nervous energy into something else, she nudged Adi affectionately.  "C’mon, she's not _that_ bad."

"Oh, please, how many 911's have we received from desperate sitters before?  How many dates have been interrupted because she's decided to unleash the full brunt of her demonic trickery while Mum is away?"

Hailey opened her mouth to contradict him, but was interrupted by the sound of her name.

_"Hai Lai_!"  There was so much wonder and adoration and warmth in it, all of which was reflected ten-fold on his face.  "You...you have a daughter?"

She smiled, his happiness for her so infectious, compounding her own.  "Yeah.  I have a daughter."

_And so do you…_

Adi was incredulous.  "What?  You didn't tell him?"

She shrugged, hoping the gesture looked entirely casual.  "No, it just – didn't come up."

"Yes – why didn't you tell me??"

Aiming for something near the truth, she put as much certainty as she could into her response.  "I don't know – I was just really enjoying talking about music and conducting, and – being treated like just a fellow musician."

"Yes, but – I mentioned about you being a mother when we were talking about Adi's kids.  Why didn't you say anything then??"

"Because sometimes when you tell people you're a mother, that's _all_ you become.  It's like you're not a person anymore; you're just a mom."

“Admit it, love:  most of the time you're the one directing topics towards Mumsville, " Adi admonished her lightly.

"Yeah, but sometimes I don't want to.  So – that's why I didn't say anything."

It seemed to work, satisfying both incredulous men.

"Wow."  Rodrigo's tone was so hushed, so full of awe, like he had just witnessed something miraculous.  "That is amazing, Hai Lai.  I am so happy for you.  You know, I always knew you would make a wonderful, wonderful mother, really – the best mother."  And there was so much warmth, so much adoration with just the slightest hint of longing underneath that she had to swallow at the unexpected lump in her throat.

She gave a nervous giggle which she hoped sounded more self-deprecating.  "I don’t know if I'm the best mother, but I try."

"So how old is she?"

Hailey fiddled with the handle of her fork.  "Fourteen months.  She'll be fifteen months in two weeks."

"Fourteen months?"  And Hailey watched Rodrigo's smile fade, his eyes narrowing as he probably did some mental gymnastics, counting backwards and then adding numbers up in his head.  "And – you said you have babysitters; is the father not around to take care of her?"

Hailey tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible.  "No, he's not in the picture."

"Thank God!" Adi chimed in. 

Rodrigo almost looked wounded at this, but he covered with a strained smile.  "Why – why do you say that?  You don't want the father to be around for his daughter?"

"I say that because knowing Hell-Spawn Junior, I can only imagine what Hell-Spawn Senior is like."  He waved his hand.  "Though I'm sure we're doing Mr. Italian Stallion a favor, taking care of his offspring that he probably never wanted."

"Italian?"  This question was directed at Hailey.

Breathing out an inner sigh of relief, she recited the story that had become rote by now.  "Yeah.  I was living in Italy for a few months about two years ago."

"Ahh."  Rodrigo nodded, his expression relaxing, though there was an unmistakable twinge of disappointment.  "So you were – in Italy for a while then?"

"Yeah.  I was there for almost three months.  Traveling, going to concerts, though I was originally supposed to study under Pascatti."

"Pascatti??"  Rodrigo looked horrified.  "Why – why would you study under Pascatti??"

"Because Thomas said I could learn a lot from him, and so he sent me there to study with him."

"Ai _no_ , Hai Lai..."  Rodrigo covered his face, wincing.  "Pascatti is – he's good, yes, but he has a very bad reputation with women.  Very, _very_ bad.  Why didn't you mention this to m-...?"  He trailed off at her warning look, spluttering a bit as he got her meaning.  "To m… _maestro_ – to Maestro Pembridge?  To Thomas?  Why didn't you tell Thomas that you needed to study with someone who did not have such a bad reputation?"

"Because I didn't know!  All he said was that he was a 'scoundrel' or 'rotten' or something, and I figured he was just being British about it.  No offense."  She laid a reassuring hand on Adi's arm.

Adi shrugged, studying the menu.  "None taken."

"But Pascatti..." Rodrigo looked concerned.  "He didn't...I mean, he didn't, you know, try to _do_ anything with you, did he?" 

Hailey shook her head.  "No, no.  He was horrible and misogynist and made disgusting remarks, but no, he didn't actually try anything.  And I left after two weeks, anyway.  That's why I was traveling around the country, and that's how I met Siena's father."  Which wasn't technically a lie, as she did _meet up_ with him randomly.

"Siena?"  There were those wheels again.  "That's your daughter's name?  You named her after the – after a town in Italy?  Or -" There was a shift in his features as he realized another option.  "Was her father from there?"

It was another potential pitfall, but Hailey had prepared for this a long time ago.  "No, he wasn't.  I named her that because when I was traveling in Siena, I saw this painting of a mother and her baby that was just – _so_ beautiful.  And when she was born, she looked like the baby in the painting, but I couldn't remember the name of it or the painter."

"What?"  Adi piped up.  "I thought that it was 'cause it was your favorite town in Italy.  That’s what you’ve always said."

"Yeah, because it's faster and not everyone gets the significance of art and its impact."  Mouth suddenly dry, Hailey took a sip of her water.

He frowned at her.  "But that's a lovely story.  You should tell people the truth." 

She nearly choked on her water, coughing a little.  "I don't know.  I thought it would sound dumb to some people."

"No dumber than picking names out of a baby name book."  Adi's lips twisted in obvious disapproval.

"Aww, I like Darren and Leyla.  And it fits them."  Hailey curled her hand around his arm, eager to steer the conversation away from the topic of Siena. 

"Darren and Leyla?  Those are your kids' names, Adi?"

"Yeah."  And he picked up his phone, showing it to Rodrigo.  "There they are, the apples of my eye."  He got that rare, warm glow reserved specifically for when he talked about his kids.

"Awww!"  Rodrigo exclaimed, tilting the phone so he could see the lock screen picture.  "They're so cute!  I can see Leyla has some of your features, yeah?  And maybe Darren has your eyes?  And they look like they are close – do they get along well together?"

Adi was practically beaming.  "Yeah, most of the time.  Leyla likes to boss Darren around a bit since she's the big sister, but she also likes to take care of him."  His smile faded.  "Especially since my ex-wife isn't always around.  'Cause her career is more important than her kids."  His expression clouded.  "Which I tried to tell the judge, but they always side with the mother."

Hailey rubbed Adi's arm.  "He just went through a really bad custody battle with his ex," she explained to Rodrigo. 

"Oh wow, I'm sorry, man."  Rodrigo was genuinely sympathetic.

"That's why I'm always telling Hailey she doesn't know how good she has it, even if she's been a single mum."

"Still a single 'mum' till you marry me," she reminded him jokingly.

"And yeah, being a single mum is tough, I get it, but she doesn't have to deal with having to fight over her children.  She doesn't have to deal with the lawyers and the documents and the money and the stress of it all.  She had kids the right way:  by herself.  Basically she got a sperm donor, though – no, even those can show up at any time.  She got a sperm donor on the other side of the _world_ who's probably sired hundreds of kids and wouldn't want anything to do with them even if he did know.  I'm telling you:  best way to have kids."

Hailey was about to say something about how being a single mom was a _little_ more than "tough," but Rodrigo jumped in.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, man.  You know, I don't understand why you have to involve lawyers and courts and things for talking about kids.  Why put red tape around a family?  Just cut the red tape!  Cut the red tape!"  Rodrigo did his familiar cutting motion to emphasize his point.  "Red tape fucks everything up, but it should _definitely_ not be in a family."

Adi straightened like he was preparing for an argument.  "Actually, you _need_ that red tape because it defines the parameters of custody.  As odious as they are, you need the lawyers and you need the courts because parents are the legal guardians, and there needs to be a delineation of those responsibilities."

"Yeah, but why do you have to involve the courts, you know?  The law should not be involved in a family."

Hailey could practically feel Adi bristling next to her.  "Adi works in a family law office, Rodrigo," she reminded him, hoping he'd get the hint.

He didn't.  "Yeah, but _family law_ , why have it in the first place?  People have been having families for hundreds, for thousands of years, and there were no lawyers!  It was okay!  It's that fucking red tape that ruins everything!"

Adi's tone had turned stiff, professional.  "Yes, and usually when people were having families, anyone could show up at any time and take the children away.  The laws were put into place to keep that from happening – to protect a parent's right to his children."

Rodrigo blathered on, either oblivious or uncaring at how he was pretty much insulting Adi's profession.  "Yeah, but like you said you have the kids on the weekend, right?"

"Every other weekend and some Wednesdays.  Sometimes two weekends in a row if my ex is on one of her ‘business trips.’"

"Okay, so..." Rodrigo shifted as much as he could without actually bringing his foot down, hands splayed out in front of him.  "So you talk to your ex-wife – what is her name?"

"Mabel."  Hailey could almost hear the grind of his teeth around the name.

"So you and Ma-bell, you have a conversation and you say, 'I want the kids on these weekends and these Wednesdays' and she says, 'Okay.  And then I will have them the other days.'  And then you are done!"

Adi stabbed the table with his finger.  "Yeah, but I didn't actually _want_ that arrangement – I wanted them _more_ of the time.  So much more of the time.  I would have preferred it the other way around, but because she lives in New Jersey and I don't, the court ruled in her favor."

"But yes, that is my point!  Why involve the courts in the first place?!  The court does not know about what kind of father you are.  The court does not see how much you love your children.  What does the court know?  The court doesn't know anything, nothing."

Adi let out a bitter laugh.  "The court knows what the lawyers can demonstrate.  And hers was able to demonstrate that I spent a lot of time studying for the CPA exams.  _Which_ I did so I could support her and my kids _better_ , but now that that's all over, I have all this time and almost none of it is spent with my kids."

"See?  And it is because of the fucking courts and that fucking red tape, man, that you don't get to spend that time with your kids!"  Rodrigo let out a sigh.  "That fucking red tape…you know, I was actually going to adopt a little boy myself."

" _What_?" Hailey couldn't have schooled her expression of shock even if she'd wanted to.  "You were going to adopt a child??"

"Yes."  Rodrigo nodded slowly, the motion heavy.  "Do you remember Maestro Rivera?"

Hailey nodded.  "Yeah, of course I do."  Then she addressed Adi.  "Maestro Rivera was Rodrigo's maestro for a long time, and he was basically like a father to him."

"Yes, Maestro Rivera was my mentor, my father figure, he was – he meant a lot to me.  He died several years ago."

"Oh.  Sorry to hear that, mate."

"Thanks, man.  But he had a lot of - a lot of lovers, and some of those lovers had kids.  One of those kids, a young woman – she had a child herself.  Maestro Rivera had a grandson.”  His smile was sad.  “But the mother of this child, she was – she was involved in things like drugs and she was with this man who was involved with one of the more dangerous cartels.  And one day, she disappeared, leaving this little baby boy behind."

"Oh my God."  Hailey couldn't help the way her heart clenched hearing this story, imagining what could have happened to a mother to leave her baby behind.  "Do they know what happened to her?"

"No, they didn't know.  But luckily, a local family with kids of their own, they took the boy in and they were taking care of him.  But they were hoping to find some of his family, to return him to his family, and so they started asking around.  And eventually, Manu was connected with them – remember?  Manu, my brother? – and he contacted me to let me know about Maestro Rivera's grandson.  Miguel."  He smiled, though it quickly faded.

"So you tried to adopt him?"  Hailey could hear the underlying note of impatience in Adi's voice.  She knew he was familiar with these types of stories, that they were basically shop talk to him with his profession. 

"Yes.  I did.  First, I tried to bring him to the United States, you know, through the – the proper channels."  His jaw clenched.  "But the _fucking red tape -_ it was taking too long.  It was taking too long, and the family he was staying with was saying that they were going to take him to the nuns, an orphanage, you know?  And I did not want Miguel in an orphanage.  And so I decided that I would leave, I would just leave the United States and come down to Mexico to get him, maybe stay there for a little bit while I got the necessary documentation together to come back.  And so I got a place, I got -" Rodrigo smiled, fully engaged in the memories.  "I got a crib and all the things that babies need, though he was about one by then, about eleven months old, and so I got him toys – I got him _so_ many toys."  He grinned, laughing at the memory.  "He loved the _alebrijes_ – there was this one he loved – "

"So what happened?"  Adi clearly wasn't used to the long-winded way that Rodrigo told stories. 

"Ah.  Yes."  The joy drained off his face instantly, replaced with the worst imitation of a smile Hailey had ever seen.  "We were together for almost a month – twenty-six days.  Twenty-six days."  Rodrigo stared at the table top.  "And then, one day, a man showed up, claiming to be Miguel's father.  He threatened me with a gun and everything -"

"He threatened you with a gun?!" Hailey exclaimed.

"Yes.  He waved this gun around, and I told him if he was really Miguel's father he would not be waving a gun around.  And so he left."  His features dropped.  "And we should have left that night.  I should have packed up everything and left, but...I thought he was gone.  And...we had made a home.  You know?  A real home together.  I did not want to leave."

Hailey was speechless, guilt twisting her gut.  All Rodrigo ever did was leave.  If he had a baby, and he wanted to _stay..._

"But then, the day after that – the man came back.  And he had a woman with him who said she was his mother.  I did not believe her, but she told me about a birthmark he had on his lower back and a freckle on his left foot that no one else could have known about.  I demanded to know where she had been for nine months, but she said she and her boyfriend, who she said was the baby's father, had been in hiding from the cartel.  And they only had a very small window of time to escape and needed to leave.  I did not believe her still, and I asked her how she could have left her baby like that, and she got angry and talked about fighting for her life and having to choose, and she – she took him.  She took Miguel.  Right out of my arms."

Heart breaking, near tears herself as she imagined what it would be like to have Siena ripped away from her, Hailey reached across the table on impulse, grabbing a hold of his hand.  "I am – so, _so_ sorry, Rodrigo.  I'm so sorry."

He patted her hand absentmindedly.  "Thank you, Hai Lai."

"Yeah."  Adi shifted, clearly uncomfortable at the emotional display.  "That's rough, mate.  I'm sorry.  Though in that case it sounds like that red tape you hate so much might actually have helped you."

Rodrigo dashed at his eyes, freeing his hand from Hailey's which she quickly withdrew.  "No.  No, it was the fucking red tape that fucked everything up.  If I had just been able to adopt him from the United States without having to wait and wait and _wait_ , I would never have gone down to Mexico.  We would have been safe."

"Yes, but even if you'd been in Mexico and they had better laws there, you could have gone and declared Miguel's case a case of abandonment – or your brother, Manu, whoever.  Then, the clock starts:  you could have petitioned to become his temporary guardian, and then you would have had that time to show for when you petitioned the court to become his permanent legal guardian.  And adopted him then."

"Yeah, but the guy had a gun, Adi.  Even if he had adopted him, what's the court going to do if a guy comes back and waves a gun in his face?"

Adi shot her a look.  "That's a case of assault and attempted kidnapping, clearly.  And that's when you involve the police."

"The police?"  Rodrigo barked out a harsh laugh, the sound bitter.  "The police wouldn't have helped, no.  They are paid off by the cartels.  They could have looked the other way, or I don't know – even made everything worse." 

"What about Manu?" Hailey asked.  "Couldn't he have helped?  You always said he could find anyone."

Rodrigo nodded.  “He tried, Hai Lai.  But - it got to be too dangerous.  And Manu, you know, Manu is a husband and a father himself.  I did not want to put him in any more danger.  And so I told him to stop looking."  He gave a half shrug, like he didn't have the energy to do a full one.  "Maybe Maestro Rivera’s daughter will realize that her boy is worth more than her boyfriend, and she will escape and make a new life for them."

"Yeah."  Hailey tried to put as much warmth into her tone as possible.  "Maybe Miguel will be okay."

"Yeah.  Maybe."  Staring off into space for a moment, he snapped to, seeming to sense how much he'd brought down the tone of the conversation.  His attention immediately went to his foot as he poked at the ice.  "I think – I think this is mostly melted now, so I don't know if it's doing anything."

"Let me see."  Overcome by guilt, Hailey was seized with the sudden need to tend to him.  Adi obliged, getting up and letting her come to Rodrigo's side.  "I'm trained in First Aid, too.  At least I was a few years ago."  She prodded at his ankle gently, noting the blue and purple blotch above his ankle.  "Does it hurt?"

He moved his head back and forth in an equivocating gesture.  "Not really.  It's a little tender, but I can move it a bit." 

"It's not swollen, which is good, but it looks like you’ve got a nasty bruise.  That’s probably what's hurting.  Can you put weight on it?"

"Let me try."  Rodrigo was going to use the table as leverage, but Hailey offered her hands.

"Here."  She pulled him up to standing.

"Thank you, Hai Lai."  He waved his arms for balance, but seemed to find it, his features gradually relaxing.  "I think - I think it is okay?  But if you don’t mind, I think I will stand here for a little bit, just to see?"

"'Course, mate, yeah."  Adi sat down again, this time on Hailey's side as she took his seat on the outside.  "Take your time."

Hailey couldn't help her smirk at the impatience in Adi's tone.  "Why don't we discuss wines?" she suggested to placate him.

"Christ, yeah," Adi practically sighed, probably not as much under his breath as he'd intended.  “I am absolutely parched.”

"Hai Lai!”  Rodrigo suddenly exclaimed like he’d forgotten something.  “I have seen Adi's kids, but I have not seen yours!  Can I see a picture?  While you guys look at the wines?"

Hailey opened her mouth to reply as she always did - and froze.  "Yeah.  Yeah, of course, um..." 

Siena didn't necessarily _look_ like Rodrigo – she had the dark, curly hair that was easy enough to explain away as inherited from an Italian man.  Same thing with her green eyes.  She'd grilled Lizzie about Siena's looks and whether people would be able to tell that she was Rodrigo's, but Lizzie had reassured her that Siena just looked vaguely Mediterranean or Latinx.  _"You'll be getting those obnoxious 'how is your child brown?' questions, Hales – not 'Holy shit, that's Rodrigo de Souza's baby!'"_   So Rodrigo couldn't look at a picture of Siena and recognize himself in her, could he?

This was Rodrigo, though.  She wouldn't put it past him.

Stalling, she fiddled with her phone like she was looking for a picture among the hundreds stored on there, faking a frown like she didn’t find anything.  "Oh!  You know what?  I _just_ deleted them off my phone this morning."

There was only mild disappointment on his face.  She was a better liar than she realized.  "Oh, that's okay."

"Wait, _what_?  All of them??"  Adi exclaimed, peering up from his menu.  "But you must have had hundreds on there!"

Hailey quickly darkened her screen.  "Yeah, well I had to transfer them and then delete them so I could make room for more," she explained with a faked self-satisfied smile. 

Sighing, Adi picked up his phone.  "No worries, mate, I got you."  And flipping through his photos, he shoved the phone in Rodrigo's direction.  "Here you go."

Time seemed to slow down as Adi passed his phone across the table, and she had to squelch the desire to snatch it out of Adi's hand before it could reach Rodrigo's.  Maybe now was the time to fake a babysitter text, interrupting their meal and making a run for it.  Or maybe she should fake a headache.  Or maybe _she_ should spill some water. 

But none of this came to fruition as Rodrigo took the phone from Adi, examining it -

\- and barked out a laugh.

Letting out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, she felt her shoulders relax, smiling the way a proud mom would smile at someone who was amused by her child.

“It’s em – there’s this thing on your phone that is –“  Rodrigo held the phone out to Adi.

“Oh!  Christ, this bloody app keeps popping up.”  A few keystrokes and he handed the phone back to Rodrigo.  “It’s a new phone - haven’t quite got the swing of it yet.” 

And Hailey didn’t have time to hold her breath this time because Rodrigo immediately let out a very audible, very drawn-out gasp, his eyes shooting wide, his hand flying up to his mouth in shock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now that Mozart in the Jungle is officially no more ;( ;( ;(, I figured I would post another chapter to help serve as a balm to any of you who are as distraught as I am over this wonderful show's cancellation. :( I absolutely loved this show that made me smile, laugh, cry, and made me feel a part of something as they explored the vastly under-represented world of classical music and the quirky, lovable, zany, cut-throat, crazy musicians that inhabit it. This story can never replace the wonderfulness that was the show, but I hope that I can give Hailey and Rodrigo some more material, and an actual completion of their arc since their relationship was, I felt, the very heart of the show.


	6. A Red, Stuffed Parrot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for letting me know you are still enjoying this - now fan-made season 5. :( The change.org petition had 363 signatures this morning - go sign it if you haven't yet!

The worst part about the evening after she broke her father's telescope hadn't actually been the moment when her mother had casually mentioned Hailey's presence in the living room, or how she had seen her playing around it that afternoon.  Because that information wasn't necessarily damning in and of itself.  Thus, the moment of the reveal wasn't the big blowout she'd been expecting; rather, it was a slow, painful process as her father asked questions, following the answers like a breadcrumb trail, a damning breadcrumb trail that Hailey had no choice but to throw down and allow him to follow. 

It was the same now:  Rodrigo standing with Adi's phone clutched in hand, the color drained from his face like he'd just seen a ghost.  The big reveal. 

And it was just the beginning.

Adi noticed right away.  “You okay, mate?  You’re looking a little pale there.”

Hailey jumped in.  “Yeah, are you okay?”

Rodrigo's eyes tore from the screen to meet Hailey's, shell-shocked and a little breathless.  "This - this is Siena??"

She put on her best confused look.  "Yeah...?"

Rodrigo seemed to get lost in the space that existed between him and the screen before him.  “I am – yes, I am pale.  I am very, very pale.”  Without any confirmation from Hailey, he seemed to realize he needed an explanation for such a strange reaction, grabbing onto the back of the booth.  “It’s – my ankle, it is – I think I maybe stood up too soon?  I need to sit?  I – I will sit.” 

Adi shot Hailey a _what the fuck_ look.  Hailey sprang into action.

“Can we get him some water?”

Adi was able to successfully flag down a staff with a water pitcher, which Hailey encouraged Rodrigo to drink.  But Rodrigo ignored the staff, the cup of water and Hailey, eyes glued to the screen of Adi’s phone.  Eyes which now included the tell-tale shine of tears.

“She is the most _beautiful_ thing I have ever seen,” he whispered.

Adi scoffed.  “Looks like you’ve got another convert, then.” 

Hailey smirked.  “What?  Someone else who thinks my baby is the most beautiful baby in the world because she _is_?”

“She is,” murmured Rodrigo.  “She is the most beautiful…so beautiful…”  Brimming with questions and unspoken declarations, he sought her attention again.  "Hai Lai..."

"Hmm?"   She kept her smile placidly proud, that of a mother who was only too happy to show off her baby.  Like she didn’t know why he looked like he'd just found out that someone had discovered every unfinished score of Mozart's and had personally invited him to be the first to view them.  Aware of the priceless gift that had just been bestowed upon him and yet torn between proclaiming it to the world and guarding it like a precious secret.

Adi shook his head, settling in with his menu.  “Just wait till you meet her.  I guarantee you’ll be changing that tune.”

“Meet her, yes.”  And now Rodrigo bordered on desperate in his attempt to silently communicate the import of his request.  “I would _love_ to meet her.  Can I meet her?”

Pushing aside her internal panic, she plastered on another benevolent smile.  “Yeah.  You can meet her,” she said, like the thought wasn’t making her stomach do a hundred flip-flops.

“Can I look at more?” Rodrigo posed to Adi, his finger poised to swipe.

“Oh, yeah – knock yourself out, mate.  Just swipe to the right – there’s loads more.”  Turning to Hailey, he indicated one of the wines.  “Did we have this one at the Blue Water Grille?  Or was it the Brunello?”

“Wasn’t it the Montepulciano?”  Hailey put every effort into maintaining a mildly interested tone.

Rodrigo let out a soft exclamation.  “There’s you, Hai Lai!”  He flashed her a quick smile.  “She – she has your chin, yes?  And your eyes, I think.  But the rest…”  He trailed off, gazing at the screen.

“All the Italian Stallion,” quipped Adi. 

“Yes.”  Rodrigo’s voice was soft.  “The rest is all her…her _father_.” 

His voice broke on the word, and a little piece of Hailey’s heart broke off with it. 

“Didn’t we have the Montepulciano at The Union Square Inn?” continued Adi, oblivious to both Hailey’s and Rodrigo’s internal meltdowns. 

“Um – yeah, we might have.  But didn't you say the tannins were too intense?”

Adi sighed.  “Oh, that’s right.  Like drinking a bloody box of toothpicks.”

“What about that Merlot we had at Tre Pomodori?  That was pretty good, and it looks similar to this one.”

“Eh – the body wasn't big enough for me.  It kind of hit you, then disappeared straightaway.”

Rodrigo chuckled.  “What is this long, red thing she has?  She has it with her all the time!”

“Oh!  You got pictures of her with –“

“Yeah, I tried to capture the hellion with her partner in crime,” Adi drawled.  "The lot of them are probably blurry, though, with the frenetic pace she maintains." 

“Her partner in crime?”  Rodrigo’s face was nearly split in two by a grin.  “What is it?”

“It’s –" And Hailey realized just how precarious the situation was now, another giant breadcrumb before him, staring him in the face.  “Her favorite toy.”

“Woe to all that try to separate them,” Adi deadpanned.     

“Well, it's not like I didn't try to warn you!  You’ve seen how it’s basically her security blanket,” Hailey good-naturedly reminded him. 

“Is it some kind of bird?”  Rodrigo continued.  “It’s very long.  As long as her - you can see it sort of drags on the ground a little bit.  A long bird?  You can’t really see…”

And all of a sudden it wasn't breadcrumbs at all.  It was ice she was standing on, and it was far too thin to support her weight.  “It’s a bird, yeah.”

“It _was_ a parrot.”  Adi sighed, scowling at the menu like it had personally affronted him.  “How about the Borolo?  Or we could always do a cab…”

“A parrot?”  Rodrigo’s confusion had an edge to it, but Hailey avoided the questioning pierce of his gaze, hers firmly on the menu.  “She has a red parrot?  For a toy?”

“I know, mate, you’re not the first to question it.  ‘swhy I tried to replace it.”

“Which I _told_ you wouldn’t work ‘cause she’s had it forever.  Some kids have blankies; my daughter has - her parrot.”

“She’s had it forever?”  Rodrigo's tone was starting to develop an incisive edge, the blade that would cut through the ice she was standing on.  “How long - how long has she had it?”

“Um, since she was born,” Hailey said, aiming for conversational and falling short, her voice quieter than she intended.  She cleared her throat. 

Rodrigo’s confused smile was belied by the way his focus zeroed in on her.  “Someone gave her a red, stuffed parrot when she was born?”

“No, it was - before she was born.”

“ _Be- before_ she was born?”

“Yeah.”  Hailey hated how small her voice sounded.

Adi snickered.  “See?  All your friends react the same way.  They _all_ think you’re a nutter for getting her such a weird toy.  And for wanting to keep a remnant of the Italian Stallion.” 

“ _You_ got it for her, Hai Lai?  And what do you mean a remnant?” 

Her mouth went dry, as the explanation that she had concocted for Adi - another white lie like the one about meeting Siena's father in Italy - stuck in her throat.  She tried not to swallow too noticeably, which was impossible when Rodrigo’s attention was lasered on her.  “Yeah, I got it for her.  Because…her father was into parrots.  He said he kept them.  And I wanted her to have something of him.”

“Her father kept parrots?  This _Italian_ man?  This _Italian_ man said he kept parrots?” 

“Yeah.”

The day Siena was born was a bit of a blur, but later, Lizzie told her of how she'd come to pick Hailey up to find her apartment in complete disarray.  Apparently, Hailey had torn it apart, desperate to find "him," Lizzie had said.  How she had babbled on and on about hard it was to find one that had "red, yellow, blue, _red"_ and was long enough to look real without being too realistic.  How she’d railed about how all the other stuffed ones either had the wrong colors, were too small, were too "fake-looking" or weren't soft enough.  How she had said she "can't do this without him" and insisted that she "can't go without him."  Finally, Lizzie had been able to determine a few things:  that Hailey had wrecked her apartment looking for a stuffed parrot; that it was meant for her daughter to have as her first toy; and finding it wedged between two pillows on Hailey's bed didn't mean anything other than he was "comfy."   

Adi smirked at Rodrigo, the wines clearly less interesting than ribbing his fiancée.  “That’s not even the weirdest part.  Tell him the name of the children’s book you were going to write, love.  As an homage to the devil’s child and her partner in crime.”

Of course.  Because Adi had to be the one to deliver the final blow with a fucking sledgehammer.

Hailey nudged his shoulder, a last-ditch attempt at avoidance, trying not to look like she was deliberately changing the subject.  “Oh, c’mon, that was a joke!"  She giggled, hoping it didn't sound forced.  "Do you really think that I have time to write a children’s book?” Resting her head on the tip of his shoulder, she peered at the wine list.  “You know, I could be in the mood for a cab.  Or I could also do a French blend.”

“What is the name of the children’s book?” 

She looked up from the wine list, her expression carefully neutral.  “Hmm?”

But Rodrigo’s expression brooked no argument. “What is the name of the children’s book, Hai Lai?”  And oh _God_ , his voice had that sound to it like he was making every effort to keep it steady, to betray no emotion.

The revelation that he was a father was one thing, but up to that point, it had been his knowledge alone, for all he knew.  The mother of his offspring was completely oblivious, mistaking her child's parentage for some other man.  Innocent.  But with one final piece of information...

“ _The Adventures of Siena and Igor_.”

 _Guilty._  

Guilty of hiding Siena's parentage from him all night.  Guilty of actively trying to conceal it.  Guilty of keeping her birth from him.  Guilty of not telling him he was _going to be_ a father, a secret she had harbored for the last two years.

That she hadn't seen him, that they weren't in contact, that half an hour ago that unfortunate night in Siena had been dubbed "troubled water under the bridge?"  None of that mattered.  Their shared history, their ups and downs, that wonderful friendship they'd somehow maintained through it all before they parted ways – was all sullied now.

And it's not like she could say she had been ignorant of his desire to have children with her. 

The moment everything clicked for him was like viewing her own personal, slow-motion train wreck.  It seemed to hit him like a physical blow, a shock wave that rippled through him:  his arms falling, the phone slipping from his fingers and landing on the table top.  The amount of pain she'd caused him with the breakup was _nothing_ compared to the way he was looking at her now.  Because when she broke up with him, there had only been a deep, deep sorrow.  The anger hadn't come until later.   

But this wasn’t anger…this was _fury_.   

This was the stab of betrayal, so piercing that she actually _felt_ it.  Like she had ripped his heart from his chest, taunting him with it while it was still warm and beating.

“Yeah, they’ve got a couple of nice blends," Adi chimed in, once again blessedly oblivious.  "The Beaujolais looks promising.  Or we could always go with one of our old standbys, love.  The Williamette Valley Pinot is always good.”

“Igor.”

Rodrigo’s attention turned mercifully back to Adi’s phone. 

Adi snickered, like he’d won a bet.  “What’d I tell you?  All your friends think it’s weird.”

“Well, that’s just ‘cause they know where it comes from.”

Hailey realized the mistake of her hasty explanation too late:  Rodrigo’s eyes flashed again in understanding.

“All your friends…like in the orchestra - they know about the – about the parrot?”

Feeling cornered, she tried not to stammer too much.  “Well – they know that like, he’s named after Igor Stravinsky.  Obviously."

“So - so _everyone_ in the orchestra - they _know_?   That - that Siena has this parrot?  _They_ know that your daughter has a red, stuffed parrot named Igor?”  Now his voice shook with barely contained emotion. 

“Not all of them.”  She could feel the situation spiraling out of control.  “I mean, they’ve all met Siena, yeah.  And since she always has it with her, they’ve met…Igor.”

Rodrigo nodded, his motions careful and controlled as he handed the phone back to Adi.  “Thank you, Adi.”  He took a shaky breath.  “But I am going to be going now because I think I am better finally.  _Hai Lai._ ”

Her stomach dropped through the floor at the sound of her name, as sharp as the crack of a whip.  “Yeah?”

He must have realized it as his next words came out in that fake light-sounding tone.  “Would you help me to, to go outside to my bike?  It is parked in the back.  Can you come with me, to help me go to it?  You know, just in case?”  He motioned impatiently with his head, and Hailey was transported back to those times when she was his assistant and he was “asking” for something that she absolutely had to acquiesce to. 

“Yeah, of course.”

“Leaving us, mate?”  Adi stood up, hand outstretched already.  “It was good to meet you.”

Rodrigo shook it heartily, his smile a little strained.  “Likewise, man.  Good luck on all of the custody bullshit.”

“Yeah.  And I’m sorry about the adoption bullshit, too.”  Addressing Hailey, Adi held up the menu, settling himself in with obvious relief on what had previously been Rodrigo's side.  "So should I just pick one?"

"Yeah.  I really don't care."  Especially at this point.  Especially after how _this_ conversation was probably going to go.  "Anything is fine.  Even if you just want to get cocktails.  Well, anything but -"

"Limoncello, I know.  Got it."

Was it her imagination or did Rodrigo shoot her a guilt-ridden look? 

“Okay, ready?”  Hailey inserted herself next to Rodrigo, throwing his arm over her shoulder.  “We don’t want you to stand on that ankle too long.”

"Yes.  I am ready."

"Ready" was probably putting it mildly:  she could feel him practically vibrating next to her.

"Great!"  He wasn't the only one who could fake a light-sounding tone.  "Here we go..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a head's up that updates might slow down a little after the next chapter since I'm a little fuzzy about order of things i need to happen and this whole "they meet up again in NYC" thing has taken up the lion's share of my attention. Also RL stuff could get in the way (my company was bought out so we're in a transition period which means I have several hours a day for writing now) so apologies if that happens. I'll try not to leave you hanging too long, I promise! :)


	7. The F*ing List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaack! I am SO sorry, my dear readers - it seems that life converged in about four different ways to keep me away from this story I had so lovingly crafted and worked on every day (and have more than 80 pages of!) I just looked at the last update date and went "O.o CRAP!" So THANK YOU for all your wonderful comments and kudos and, of course, your patience with me as I tried to negotiate all the things life threw at me that kept me away. I have a better idea of how things will flow after this, so I hope *fingers crossed* that updates can be about once a week again. In the meantime - the dreaded conversation *duh duh duh duh!* :)

Rodrigo was uncharacteristically quiet as they made their way through the restaurant, past the startled kitchen staff, ignoring their exclamations and protests, with Hailey issuing quick apologies over her shoulder about how he had hurt his ankle and they needed to get to the back alley to retrieve his bike.  Once they arrived, however, she let out an exclamation of her own.

"Shit."  She walked them further into the alley, doing a full sweep in case she’d somehow missed it.  "You're sure you parked it back here?"

"No, I didn't."  And he extricated himself from her, stumbling over to a wall, which he leaned against, breathing hard.  Whether it was from the exertion, from the pain – or from whatever he was about to unleash on her, it was difficult to tell.

"Oh."  She decided to play dumb, not knowing how to approach this conversation that she'd imagined hundreds of times in her head - but faced with the actual event itself, found herself unable to dredge up any of the opening statements she had practiced over the past two years.  "So – then, what are we doing here?"

"What are we doing here?" he echoed, incredulous.  "What are we doing here?  Hai Lai – you  _know_ what we're doing here.  You  _know_."

Her nonchalant shrug failed, the tension that had seized her only allowing her to lift one shoulder, and partway at that.  "Okay."  She crossed her arms, trying to keep her expression open but guarded.

"Siena?"

And she had never heard her child's name uttered with such hope, such love and warmth and adoration that he couldn't possibly feel when he didn't even know her.  "Yeah?"

"She is...mine?"  His tone was so soft, tentative even.  "I am her...I am her father?"  Whereas his voice had broken on the word before, this time he could barely complete it, like if he spoke it too loudly it might not be true.

And Hailey could only nod at first, the enormity of the moment tightening her throat, cutting off her words.  But then she could see that Rodrigo needed to hear it, to hear confirmation of what he had somehow known when he saw Siena's face on Adi's screen for the first time.  "Yeah.  You're...you're Siena's father."

“Weh…” he began, his eyes lit with his earlier fury, with that pained betrayal.  “Wh – whe – were you not going to tell me?  Were - were you going to let me leave without saying anything?  Without mentioning that I have…that I have a _daughter_? _”_    

She closed her eyes, trying to collect herself, to seek the words she had prepared for so long should this moment ever arrive.  “I’m – I’m sorry, I –“

“You’re  _sorry_?”  He let out a pained laugh.  “That is – that is – I forgot to mention something, and, and ‘what are you doing, anything new?  No, no, I will talk about the conducting and the ensembles and playing the oboe, and I forgot to mention that  _you have a daughter_!’”

"I knew that Adi was coming, and he doesn't know."

"No, he thinks her father is some horrible Italian man or something."

“Yeah, he really doesn’t like Italians – I think it’s a soccer thing.”

Rodrigo’s eyebrows raised in understanding, making some sort of noise of agreement.  “Mm, yes, he would.  That makes sense, yes.”

"But I told everyone else that, too, so that's what everyone thinks."

"No, not everyone."  And it was a condemnation again, one Hailey was hard-pressed to defend herself against.

"That's just because of Igor."  It sounded weak, and she knew it.  "Only the people who knew both of us were able to figure it out, no one else.  I only told Lizzie and my mom.  And I still say to anyone who asks that I met a guy when I was traveling in Italy, which is - kind of true."

And he was right back to angry.  "Orchestra members are sleepy, Hai Lai, and they don't listen to things but they are not stupid!  You gave your child a stuffed, red parrot and you named it Igor!"

"I didn't know she would love it so much that it became like her security blanket!  I didn't know that she would never want to be parted from it so that I  _had_ to take it wherever she went!  And the only reason I got it for her in the first place was that she would at least have something of you if she never met you!"

His face blanched.  "If she  _never_ met me – wh..."  He moved his hand up the wall as if needing greater purchase.  "W-were you  _never_  going to tell me?"

She threw her head back in exasperation, realizing how that had sounded.  "That's not what I meant."

"So – so you were going to tell me when she was what?  A small child?  A teenager?  That, that she would come to me as a grown woman, an adult and say, 'Hello, I am your daughter?!'"

"I didn't know if I was ever going to get to tell you because I didn't know if I would ever  _see_ you again!"

He looked genuinely shocked at this.  "You didn't know if you would see me -"

Gaining momentum now, she pressed on. "And it's not like you're a normal person so I couldn't call you or email you or like Facetime or Snapchat or even send you like a fucking  _letter_!  Because you need to have an actual address to get a letter, like you have to have an actual  _place_!  Which you never had!"

"I have a place!  I have a place!  And I have a phone!"  

"Yeah –  _now,_ but have you had one for the last four years?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but she didn't give him a chance.

"And you've been here for what?  Three, four months?  And you didn't tell  _anyone_ you were here!  No one knew you were here because what?  We didn't deserve to know?  We're not your friends anymore?"

"What?"  He looked almost wounded that she would suggest such a thing.  "Of course you are my friends!  But what does this have to do with not telling me about Siena?!"

"What does this have to do with..."  Thoroughly pissed now, the full brunt of everything that had stayed bottled up for four years was suddenly at the forefront.  "See –  _this_ is what I'm talking about!  Right here – you want to know all the reasons why I didn't tell you about Siena?  Because I have a freaking list!  No - I have a _fucking_ list!"

"Well, I want the fucking list!”  His hands flew with wild abandon.  “I want the fucking list!”

“Fine!”  She started counting off on her fingers.  “First – did you know that there’s a website called whereintheworldisrodrigo.com?  Where people track your movements and post about the last time you were sighted?”

He waved a hand like it was of no consequence.  “Yeah, but that was started by some crazy fans – they like to stalk me so they can get pictures and autographs and things.”

“Yeah.  Well, your crazy stalker fans have all had conflicting reports about where you were for the last four years.  And if your crazy stalker fans can’t even find you, then how was  _I_ supposed to find you?  You weren’t at concert halls, festivals – you just dropped off the map.  For all I knew you were doing – ‘shrooms with Seiji Ozawa in the Amazon or were living in a fucking ashram in India or something!”

“An ashram??”

“I don’t know!  You were just  _gone_!”

He held up his hands.  “Okay yes, - yes, I disappeared, and I didn’t have contact with people here, but it was the Ballet for No Audience that I did with Egon where I got to be nothing where I realized that I had been in the spotlight for so long that it was – it was burning me, it was burning me from the inside and on the outside and that was why I was floating with no dark matter, and I was choking.  Because I had nothing and I was nothing and I had to  _be_ nothing for a little while so I could figure out how to be  _something_!   Because when you lose everything, and there is nothing left – that is when you can start with something, start building something.  And so I was trying to, to build, to start something new.”  He motioned with his hands, like he was coaxing a phoenix from the ashes.  “With – with Nadia at first -”

“Exactly!”  Hailey jumped at her opportunity before his long-winded explanation could go any further.  “You were  _engaged_ the last time I saw you, and for all I knew you could have been married, and I didn’t want to fuck up your life!”

“Fuck up my life?!  Fuck up my  _life_?!  How would knowing I have a daughter fuck up my life?!”

She shot him an incredulous look.  “Are you kidding me?  ‘Hey, Rodrigo’s new wife, we’ve never met, but I’m the ex he slept with the night he proposed to you and – oops!  Here’s a lifelong  _souvenir_ to remind you of your loving husband’s infidelity!  Have a nice day!’”  She spread her hands out as if to say  _ta-da_! 

He deflated a little at that.  “Okay.  Okay, yes, you are right, that would not have been good.”  Then his eyes flashed again.  “But we did not stay together!”

“And how the  _fuck_ was I supposed to know that?!  When you’d completely dropped off the map?!”

“Yes, I had taken myself off the map, but if I had known that  _you_ were looking for me, I would have put myself back on the map!  So did you?”

Having arrived at the more uncomfortable part of the conversation, the bit where it wasn’t _all_  his fault, she shifted her weight to the side, needing to fidget.  “Did I what?”

“Did you look for me at all – when you knew?”  His voice had dropped back into that pained place, so much harder to remain impervious to than his anger.  “And if you got Igor for Siena before she was born, that means that you knew she was mine all the time you were pregnant.  That you knew right away.”

She pulled her arms around herself, not needing a reminder of the agony she’d gone through during that time.  “I hadn’t had sex with anyone in like six months so…yeah.  I knew right away.”

Hearing confirmation of what he already knew seemed to wound him further.  “So you knew for those nine months, and then she – she is what?  Fourteen months old?  You knew for two years, Hai Lai.   _Two years_.”  And then, the question that she had dreaded the most.  “Did you not want me to know?”

Too painful to look at him when she admitted this, she kept her gaze firmly pinned to the ground.  “I don’t know.”

He didn’t say anything, but his breathing changed like she had just dealt him an actual physical blow.  

Her voice was quiet.  “When you become a parent…you get  _really_ fucking protective of your child.  Like – I was actually kinda shocked that I became this Mama Bear.”

He let out a noise that might have been a chuckle.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I could definitely see that.”  

“And the thing is – you’re really famous.”

He scoffed.  “I am not that famous anymore.”

“When you’ve been on the cover of  _Rolling Stone_  like… _ever_ , that’s famous.  And you’re still famous enough to have a website devoted to tracking where you are in the world.  And there’s another website devoted to the supposed eternal love between you and Ana-Maria.”

He made a disgusted face at that.  “Yeah, those fans are very,  _very_ crazy.”

“They actually gave your relationship a name – ‘Rodrana’ and they call themselves ‘Rodranians.’  It’s pretty fucked up.”

He shook his head in obvious embarrassment.  “Yeah, it is.  Especially when she has been a nun all this time.”

“Well, they still hold out hope that she’s going to renounce her vows and you’ll be reunited again someday.  But as much as they love you guys – they  _hate_  me.”

He seemed genuinely surprised at this.  “They hate you??”

“Well, yeah.  They think that I’m the reason you guys divorced again, and that you sold out or I seduced you to sell out or something.”  She sighed, remembering the time when she had come across this website, the panic that had seized her that they  _knew_.  But they seemed entirely uninterested in her as a person and her life and more fixated on the times she was with Rodrigo.  Still, it had rattled her enough that she had an alert set up for any new posts that contained her name on that site.  “So yeah, you can imagine how they would react if they knew I had a daughter with you.”

He seemed reluctant to concede her point.  “Well, yes, they would be angry, but that is  _them_ , Hai Lai.  You are talking about crazy fans knowing.  What does that have to do with me knowing?”

“It’s part of it.  Because I did a lot of research about children who have famous parents.  Did you know that they’re more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety, and other mental illnesses?  Do you know how much more likely they are to get involved in drugs, to become alcoholics – how many more suicide attempts they have?  How much more likely they are to drop out of school, be in bad relationships –“

“Okay,” he cut her off.  “Okay, okay, so these are things that could come up later, yes, but only if  _everyone_ knew.  You are talking about situations where it is public information that she is my daughter.  But you haven’t said why you wouldn’t tell  _me_.  So…”  His piercing look was laden with pain.  “Is there any other reason you would not want me to know?”

She was dragging her feet, and she knew it.  But stating what had been bothering her, what she had thought about back when they were dating when she realized how many times he had casually mentioned children and family, when she had thought about it for a second and then run screaming for the hills – she had to wrench the words from her throat, knowing how much they would hurt him.

“You’re not great at taking care of yourself,” she began hesitantly.  “When I thought about having a baby with you, all I could think of was that I didn’t want to have to take care of the baby – and you.”

Surprisingly, this information didn’t seem to shock him.  In fact, he nodded, like this was something he had expected or heard before.  “Is that why you broke up with me?”

“It was a big part of it.”  And now she couldn’t look at him.  “I couldn’t always manage your feelings all the time because there were times when mine should have come first.  And they never did.  Like there wasn’t room for them because yours were too – big.”

He nodded again.  “I was very childish.”

She chuckled.  “Yeah.  You definitely were.”

He was pensive a moment.  “You know, they say when you become famous, that is when you stop growing.  Like developing emotionally, you know?  I won my first conducting competition when I was twelve.”  He shrugged.  “I had a lot of growing up to do.”

Hailey gave a small smile.  “Are you saying that you’ve been growing up?”

He mirrored her smile, though it was more strained.  “I have been trying to.”

The last, the final thing she wasn’t saying hung heavy in the air between them.

Rodrigo picked up on it.  “There is more?”  He let his head fall against the wall, the conversation seeming to take a toll on him.

“Do you want to sit down?  You’ve been standing a lot.”

“No, I am okay.”  He gave her an expectant look.

The final piece was the hardest because it wasn’t just about protecting Siena, it was about her.  About how his actions and his behavior had impacted her, and it was a lot to share, to admit.  

“As much as I might have wanted Siena to know you – because I did…”  She had to steel herself a little for the next part.  “Like I said, you get really protective when you become a parent.  You want what’s best for them; you – think about everything that could happen to them.  So…as much as I wanted Siena to meet you and to know you – I never wanted her to know what it was like to get left behind by you.”

His mouth dropped open in disbelief.  “You think that I would leave her behind?  That I could  _ever_ leave her behind?”

“Yeah.  You leave people’s lives without a second thought.  You left mine, and you left everyone else’s here, and okay, maybe you had your reasons, but…you always leave.  It’s just what you do.”

“I did not choose to leave your life.  You asked me to leave.”  His reminder was tinged with bitterness.

“I said we couldn’t date anymore.  I never asked you to – disappear off the fucking planet.”

She could see the moment when the truth started to sink in, how his defensiveness began to melt.

She gentled her tone, softening it.  “I get – why you might have ghosted me.  But you ghosted everyone else, too.  People who cared about you and loved you and who you called your family at one point.”  She raised her shoulders in a helpless gesture.  “Why would I think you’d be any different with real family?”

It was almost physical, the impact the truth of this statement had on him:  a pained look shot through him as the burden of realization overtook him, closing his eyes and bowing his head under the weight of it.  When his eyes finally met hers, they glistened, and his words were slow and measured.  “Okay.  Okay, Hai Lai.  You are right.  I have not been here.  And I did not stay in places.  I left when things got hard because I did not know what else to do.  My life for so long has been – how do you say?  Transiting?  Transmitting?”

“Transitory?”

“Yes, transitory.  I came to a place, I played or I conducted, I did what I was supposed to do and then – I left.  And before, I suppose, I did not make those – deeper bonds maybe?  Or I did not care even if I had?”  He shrugged in self-deprecation.  “ _Qui_ _sas_?  But here I did make those deeper bonds, and then I left.”  He took a deep breath.  “And so – I owe you an apology.”

She started to shake her head.  “No, you don’t.“

“Yes, I do, Hai Lai.  And so – I am sorry that I left without telling anyone, without saying goodbye.  I am sorry I was not here for – the friends I made here, the, the wonderful people of the orchestra.”

She shook her head.  “You need to tell them, not me.”

He nodded.  “Okay.  Okay, I will tell them.  I will tell them.  But I am also sorry that I was not here for you.  And…that I was not here for Siena.”

Hailey had forgotten how heartfelt his apologies could be; she could only nod her acceptance.  “Thank you.”

He grew thoughtful again.  “You know, it’s funny how you think you are one way in your mind, you know?  But then everyone else thinks you are another way, and so they act around you a certain way because of the way that they think you are – when you really think that you are a different way?”

She blinked at him.  “Yeah, I have no idea what you just said.”

“Even though I thought I would be a good father in my mind – I did not show you how I would be a good father.”

Spelling it out so plainly was hard to hear, even if it was true.  “I wouldn’t say that, exactly.”

“No, no.  To be a good father, first you – you have to be here.”  He smiled in that way he sometimes did when he was explaining something.  “You know, you have to be here, and you have to stay.  You cannot just – leave and go somewhere and not tell anyone.”

“Yeah, you can’t really just – take off whenever you want once you have a child.”

“Exactly.  And so, from now, today, until the day that Siena grows up and she – you know, becomes her own woman, goes off in the world to school or whatever she does or chooses – I will be there.”

Hailey frowned.  “Be where?”

“Wherever she is.  Wherever you are:  if you and Adi stay here, I will stay here.  If you decide to move somewhere else – I will move there, too.  To the same city or the same town or wherever it is you move to.  Not –" He hastened to explain upon seeing her reaction.  “Not to live with you guys, of course, you know – not – not next door or even down the street, not on top of you, but somewhere within the same place.  So that I can always be there for her for – whenever you decide that I can be a part of her life.  And then she will always know that even though her father was not there for her for her first fourteen months – after that, he was.  And that he was only a, a bike ride or a bus ride or a train ride away.”

Ah yes, the sweeping declarations he could make on the spot to solve a problem or demonstrate his loyalty.  She’d forgotten about those.  Hailey grappled with her response.  “That’s –  _really_ sweet, but it’s a little drastic.  You don’t have to give up your livelihood to be her father.  Honestly, if I just have a reliable method of contacting you, it would be a huge improvement - and it’s really all I need.”

“Yes, yes, I will give that to you, of course.  But wherever Siena is – that is where I will be.”

She’d forgotten how stubborn he could be, too.  “Okay, but you could be offered a job anywhere in the world at any time.  What if you’re offered a position in Europe or South America or Asia?  Are you really going to turn it down?”

“If she is not in any of those places, then yes.”  

“But we’re talking about your livelihood – your career!  Are you honestly going to sacrifice your livelihood for…?”  She trailed off, realizing she already knew the answer to her question.

“For someone I love?” he finished quietly.  “You think I would not sacrifice my livelihood for someone I love?”

The air seemed to crackle with their past, the sacrifice he had made for her four years before and what it had entailed.

“No, I know you would.”  Her words were soft, barely audible for the lump that had formed in her throat.  “But you’re talking about a lifetime, not just – one job…”

_“Leading the New York Symphony is the best job in the world, and this steadily maturing conductor does not feel worthy of the job.  Today it is someone else’s turn…”_

The crinkled piece of notebook paper had been stashed at the bottom of her jewelry box, the edges worn from all the times she’d unfolded and re-folded it over the years.  In that first year, she would unfold it, laying it on her pillow and just stare at it, reading and re-reading his last words to her, her fingers lightly tracing each of the messy letters.  It had stayed hidden away in her jewelry box after Siena was born, but one night after Adi left, she’d crept into her room, retrieving it and smoothing it out.  The next morning, she had held Siena with the ever-present Igor on her lap and read it to her, telling her the story of her father and what he had done for her mother.  And all he had meant to her.  

All this came to her as she considered Rodrigo’s promise.  “It’s a lot, Rodrigo.  I mean you haven’t even met her yet.  Maybe meet her first before deciding to sign your life away.”

“I will not change my mind, Hai Lai.”  He was firm, resolute, with that set to his features that indicated there was no persuading him.  “And I am not signing my life away when I am saying I will always be there for my daughter.  Are you signing your life away by being her mother?”

Hailey gave him a wry smile.  “It kinda comes with the territory of being a mom.  Especially a single one.”

The regret that shone from his face was almost tangible.  “I am sorry I have not been there for you, either, Hai Lai.”

“I’ve had Adi, at least for the last eight months.  Though the first six were…hard.”  The understatement of the year, of course, but he didn’t need to know that.  Also, talking about that time brought up all the stuff about her dad, and she could  _not_ think about that now or she would melt into a sobbing heap on the dirty pavement.

His regret deepened, guilt marring his features.  She’d forgotten how… _intense_ his feelings could be, especially when directed at her.  And in that moment she could feel how much he felt  _for_ her.  “I am so sorry.  I was not there for you, and that is my fault.  You had to do it all on your own.”

It was the one apology she never expected to get from him, the acknowledgement of what her life had been, though he couldn’t possibly know how she had felt near-drowning every day.  She struggled to keep her features from wobbling, pressing her lips together and taking deep breaths.  “Thanks” was all she could manage.

Rodrigo stepped forward, taking her hands.  “I promise, Hai Lai – whenever you are ready for me to be a part of her life, I will make it up to her.  And I will make it up to you.  For all the time that I was not there.”

As if on cue, her phone buzzed loudly in her pocket.  Extracting her hands from his, she dug in her pocket, jarred back to the reality of the world that was happening outside their discussion.  

_What happened???_

_Is everything ok???_

_Did he collapse or something??_

“Fuck, it’s Adi.”  

“Ah, yes, he is probably wondering where you are.”

“Yeah.”  She typed out a hasty reply that Rodrigo was fine, but that she’d had to deal with another crisis.  Another white lie to add to the list.  Crap, there was an actual list now.  “I have to go.”  And because time was short, she thrust her phone at him.  “Put your number in my phone.”

Her abrupt tone clearly surprised Rodrigo, but he typed in his contact information, handing it back to her.

“Okay.  I’ll be in touch.  Don’t lose your phone,” she admonished, though it was good-natured.

“No, no, I will not.  I will keep my phone close to me at all times.”

“Good.”  Turning to leave, she had to voice her burning question.  “Just – one question.  How did you know?  I mean, I know she’s got darker hair, but you took one look at her, and it was like you knew immediately.”

Rodrigo’s smile was soft.  “She looks like my mother when she was a baby.”

“Your mother??”

He nodded.  “My  _abuelita_  had all these pictures in the house of my mother from her childhood, you know?  And there was this one picture of her as a baby, and seeing Siena - it was like I was looking into the past and seeing my mother.  Or like I was seeing a ghost or something.  It was a little bit strange, actually.  Very shocking.”

“Yeah.  Wow.”  Big shocks all around tonight.  “Well…maybe you should clear your schedule this weekend.”

“This weekend??”

“Yeah.  Adi has the kids this weekend so it’ll be a good time.”

“A good time?  You mean for – for…seeing her??”

“Yeah, for meeting her.”  

Rodrigo’s shock was quickly replaced by gratitude and abundant joy.  “Yes!  Yes, okay!  Okay, I will have nothing on my schedule.”

“Good.”  

She was still smiling when she returned to the table, remembering to drop it only at the last second.


End file.
